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ROME IN CANADA.

4

ROME

IN

CANADA

THE ULTRAMONTANE STRUGGLE

FOR

SUPREMACY OVER THE CIVIL AUTHORITY.

BY

CHARLES LINDSEY.

TORONTO :

LOVELL BROTHERS.

1877.

50977

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, by Charles
I<indsey, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

LOVELL BROS,, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 39 & 4I MELINDA ST., TORONTO.

\

ri

ROME IN CANADA

The term ' Church Militmt,' is, in Canada, more than a figure of
speech. When the temporal power of the Papacy was in the agony of
dissolution, between five and six hundred French Canadian youths took
up arms, with a feeling akin to rapture, and flew across the sea to the
succour of the Pope. This expedition, set on foot in defiance of the
law of nations, look part in aAiarrel in which neither Canada nor
England had any share. These Papal Zouaves of Canada, who were
at war while their Sovereign was at peace, bore a flag the device on
which, as seen on the cover of this book, was intended to typify their
errand. This flag, the gift of the Abb^ Rousselot, Cur^ of Montreal,
was designed by M. Napoleon Bourassa, embroidered by the Nuns of
the H6pital-G^n^ral of that city, blessed by Bishop Bourget, and
borne to Rome in an expedition which the Canadian Zouaves regarded
as a modern Crusade Among the organizers, officers and leaders
of these Zouaves, the fiercest of Ultramontanes, were men who,
when they laid down the sword, took up the pen to assail the repre-
sentatives of whpt remained of Gallican principles, in their native
land, and to demand absolute and unconditional submission to Rome.
They are now panting for an opportunity to fight for the restoration of
the temporal power. The device on the flag of these ardent and
enthusiastic fillibusters, in which the battle-axe figures conspicuously,
fitly typifies the movement which it is the object of this work to
describe.

^

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I.— Premonitions of the Stuuggle, -
II.— The Rise of the New School,
III. — Liberties of the Gallican Church, -
IV.— Gallicanism Transplanted to Canada,
v.— The Jesuits and the Civil Power,
VI.— The Anglo-Gallican Theory,

VII. — The Programme, -

VIII.— The Assault on the Old Liberties, -

IX. — Catholic Liberalism,

X. — The Apotheosis of Intolerance,
XI.— The Marriage Relation, - . - .

XII. — Appeals to Rome,

XIII. — The Bishops Claiming Political Control, -
XIV. — Spiritual Terrorism at Elections,
XV. — The Claim of Clerical Immunity,
XVI. — The Congregation of the Index and the Inqui

SITION,

XVII. — Thb Wealth of the Church,
XVIII. — A Recoil at one Point of the Line, •

PAOB.

3
II

43

75
90

118
153

157
187
210
aai

244
252

272

294

310

345
396

tl

I.

PREMONITIONS OF THE STRUGGLE.

The Vatican Council is sometimes assumed to be the
starting point of a retrograde movement in the Roman
Catholic Church which has for its object the revival of
the medieval spirit in the nineteenth century. But the
origin of the movement is a little more remote in point
of time. The Vatican Council was rather its official con-
summation than the initial point. Pius IX. had pre-
viously renewed several bulls framed with the view of
enabling the Church of Rome to encroach on the domain
of the civil power : bulls which had fallen into disuse for
a long period of time, and some of wl^ch had from the
first been rejected by nearly every government m Chris-
tendom.

The tone of the Papal Court, gradually increasing in
arrogance, carried its fatal contagion slowly but surely to
the remotest nations in which a considerable portion ol
the population was Roman Catholic. In some coun-
tries, the change had not been so great as to attract gen-
eral attention before the Vatican Council was held.
But the decrees of that Council did not spring out of the
earth ; the way had been prepared for them, and it was
perfectly understood at Rome before the Council met
what was required of it and what it could be relied upon
to do. The formal adoption of the dogma of the Im-
maculate Conception led up to the declaration of Papal
Infallibility.

Except in the diocese of Montreal, there was no part of
Canada in which the Ultramontane contagion had pro-
duced much, if any, visible effect before the promulga-

4 ROME IN CANADA.

tion of the Vatican decrees The episcopal assault on the
Institut Canadien had commenced several years before.
Liberal journals had been denounced by the Bishop of
Montreal, ^nd he had refused to admit that laymen had
any right to liberty of opinion.

But at this time Bishop Bourget, the leader of the Ul-
tramontane movement in Lower Canada, had neither the
sympathy nor the concurrence of his episcopal colleagues.
The palace of the Archbishop of Quebec was still the lin-
gering refuge of Gallicanism, and the other bishops were
far more in sympathy with the Archbishop than with
the Bishop of Montreal.

It is undeniable that the Roman Catholic Bishops of
Quebec had, at different times, raised their voices on
questions of political or national interest ; but in doing so
they acted in perfect accord with the national instincts,
and aided the Government in periods of national crisis.
Such action on their part is clearly distinguishable from
the modern assertions of the right of the Church of Rome
to control political elections in her o-y/n interest. On
the breaking out of the war of 1812, Bishop Plessis en-
couraged the spirit of volunteering ; when the rebellion
reared its head in Lower Canada, Bishop Lartigne, of
Montreal, condemned the revolt in a pastoral which he
ordered to be read in all the parish churches. In
1868 Bishop Bourget denounced the Fenians as a secret
society, and instructed the priests to refuse them the sac-
raments unless they renounced their connection with the
order. This, of course, was not done from any national
or political motive, but in deference to a rule of the
Church under which all secret societies come under con-
demnation.

It is quite true that the Government welcomed the aid
of the Bishops on these several occasions ; but only moral
bUndness could lead any one to confound these acts of

PREMONITIONS OF THE STRUGGLE. 5

the Bishops with the attempts which they now make to
obtain absolute control of political elections, by directing
electors how to vote, and holding over their heads the
menace of the retusal of the sacraments as the penalty
of disobedience.

While Canada was under the French dominion, the
principles of the Gallican Church, though not always
free from assault, were practically predominant in the
colony.

When Canada fell under the dominion of a Protestant
crown, it was inevitable that the new subjects of England
should draw nearer to Rome. Out of a religion which
was proscribed in the mother country, nothing bearing
the semblance of a national Church could be formed, in
the newly acquired colony. While the free exercise of
the Roman Catholic religion was accorded in the very
terms of the capitulation, attempts continued to bs
made, for many years, to prevent the exercise within the
cdlony of any authority centred in Rome. But, one by
one, the restraints which had been imposed, for what
wsre considered prudential reasons, were removed, and
the authority of Rome came in time to be far greater in
the British than it had ever been in the French colony.

But the time came, after the publication of the Sylla-
bus, and especially after the promulgation of the Vatican
decrees, when the fullest liberty and the most perfect
equality no longer sufficed for the Church of Rome. She
now claims religious dominance and political control.
These pretensions will certainly be met, as they deserve
to be, with determined resistance.

In this contest, it will be desirable as much as possible
to distinguish the dogmatic from the civil aspect of the
question. But this is not always possible. There are
many cases in which the two are inextricably blended.
Intolerance, or a denial of the right of any other form of

6 ROME IN CANADA.

religion than that of Rome to public celebration, is a
dogma which strikes at the root of civil liberty. When
a person who has received Christian baptism outside of
the Church of Rome is told that he is bound by the de-
crees of the Congregation of the Index and ot the Inqui-
sition, and that he is not at liberty to read a book treat-
ing of law or philosophy without special permission of
the Pope, he feels that this is a theory which, if it could
be enforced, would deprive him of one of his most cher-
ished rights. When a person who has been married ac-
cording to the laws of the land is told that, according to
the dogma of the Church of Rome, he is living in a state
of concubinage, and is bound to separate from his wife,
he sees that those who hold this doctrine only want the
power, not the will, to do him a grievous injury.

If th ise who make loud profession of these dogmas
could grasp in their hands the whole political power of
the country, what guarantee would remain for the main-
tenance of the rights and liberties of the rest of the pop-
ulation ?

In this refusal of Rome to reconcile herself to civiliza-
tion and modern progress, there are those who see grave
dangers : the elements of a contest between medieval ec-
clesiasticism and the civilization of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Others admit themselves to be so morally purblind
as not to be able to recognize the danger. A man would
be accounted wilfully imprudent who, if threatened every
day with the deprivation of his liberty or his life on the
first favourable opportunity, failed to take reasonable pre-
cautions against the threat being carried into effect.

The Ultramontanes of Quebec, by a systematic plan of
attack upon the old moderate, reasonable, tolerant, and
respectable Galileans, have already obtained the advan-
tages of having had the last word, and are joyously hug-
ging the conviction that there is not moral courage

PREMONITIONS OF THE STRUGGLE. 7

enough left in that section of the ecclesiastics and their ad-
herents, whom they have treated as enemies, to renew
the defence.

To trace the difference between the New School — as the
late Bishop of Montreal calls it — and the old will be
equally interesting and instructive.

The resignation of Bishop Bourget is an event to which
too much significance might easily be attached. Scarcely
voluntary, it Avas eagerly accepted at Rome. The
Bishop's imprudence could not be denied, and the neces-
sity of allowing him to give place !o another was clear.
Complaint had been made at Rome that the policy of the
episcopate, led by Bishop Bourget, would, if continued,
prove disastrous to the Church. There is no reason to
suppose that Bishop Bourget had done anything that
was distasteful tD Rome. But his manner of doing many
things was unfortunate. Prudence counselled the accep-
tance of his resignation. But it was desirable to let him
fall as easily as possible. In ceasing to be Bishop ot
Montreal, he acquired the title of Archbishop of Martin-
opolis (Mesia). The empty title was a poor exchange
for the real power ; and his admirers will sympathize
with the late Bishop under the effect of a blow which
seemed to have a stunning and might have a fatal effect.
His whole life had been given to the service of Ruine ; it
had been one of almost heroic devotion and constant sac-
rifice ; and his friends evidently think it was a poor
return that he got for all that mortal man can give.

In vain did Bourget's friends in the priesthood try to re-
cover the lost ground : to induce the Papal Court .0 recall
the acceptance of the resignation. The Court of Rome
found it necessary to dissemble for a moment. The Arch-
bishop of Quebec about this time issued a mandement, in
which he, in effect, condemned everything the united
episcopate of the Province had done for the past three

ROME IN CANADA.

years. The priests of his diocese he forbade voluntarily
to interfere in elections. His pastoral read like an ar-
raignment of the fifth Council of Quebec, and a condem-
nation of the joint action of the episcopate dating back no
further than the previous September.

Has Rome, people asked, really commanded a halt in
the Province of Quebec ? Has the Archbishop power to
tear up the joint letter of the episcopate, at the head of
the signatures to which stood his own name ? Fear not
the re-assurance of the clerical organs ran : the joint let
ter, which obliges the priests to interfere in elections
and to enforce their interference with the terrible sane
tions of their holy office, remains in full force and vigour

At this juncture the Archbishop of Quebec re-appeared
upon the scene, to volunteer an explanation. His mande-
ment of May 5, 1876, did not supersede the collective
letter of September 22, 1875. To the truth of the princi-
ples of the letter he was a witness ; and these principles,
which were but a development of the decrees of the fourth
and the fifth Councils of Quebec, his mandement left intact.
Between the two mandements he found no contradiction.
All he intended was to put his clergy on their guard
against overstepping certain boundaries in the exercise
of rights long since prescribed by competent authority.
The collective pastoral was addressed to all Catholics in
the Province ; his mandement was intended to enlighten
the electors on certain duties which it fell to them to per-
form on occasion of political elections.

It remains true, nevertheless, that the instructions of
the two documents are as wide as the poles asunder.
The truth seems to be that the Archbishop felt called
upon to say something to satisfy the exigency of the
moment, though there was no real intention greatly to
alter the policy previously pursued ; and when he found
he was taken at his word, he had to explain that that

PREMONITIONS OF THE STRUGGLE. g

word was without meaning. We need not therefore ex-
pect any real change of conduct on the part of the Roman
Catholic clergy of Quebec as a consequence of the resig-
nation of Bishop Bourg or any hint from Rome on
which the Archbishop may have acted when he penned
his pastoral letter of May 5. Pius IX. has, in fact, since
upheld the bishops in the ground they took in their joint
letter of September, 1875.

There is probabl}' no country in the world, unless it be
Belgium, in which the Ultramontanes raise their demands
so high as in the Province of Quebec. The City of Que-
bec, the mother of sixty dioceses, enjoys at Rome the dis-
tinction of being considered tha metropolis of the Roman
Catholic religion in North America.* The New France
of other days occupies, in that part of the world, a posi-
tion not dissimilar to that of the eldest son of the Church
in Europe. Quebec is proud of the pre-eminence, and
seems resolv ' aat no rival shall supplant her in the
affections t .iie Holy See, if blind obedience to papal
authority bring its due reward. In Quebec, the Ultra-
montanes are attempting to occupy all the avenues that
lead to power, secular as well as ecclesiastical. One por-
tion of the press they aim to control, the other to silence.
They claim the direction of political elections, and
they demand immunity for their political acts, because
these acts are performed under the shadow ol the sanc-
tuary. Such a career of aggression, pursued with un-
flagging persistency, was sure to provoke opposition. No
one therefore was surprised when, some months ago, a
public man, reading the signs of the times, declared that
a great battle between Ultramontanism and the defenders
of the citadel of civil liberty was about to be fought in
Canada.

♦ Bull of Pius IX., May 15, 1876, canonically erecting the University of Laval,
Quebec. .

V".

10

ROME IN CANADA.

The battle has already opened. The right of the clergy
to exercise undue influence over elections has been con-
tested in the civil tribunals, and the attacks which are
made upon other forms of immunity — especially the im-
munity from municipal taxation which Church property
enjoys — show on what line the next battle will be fought.

The Church of Rome is all but omnipotent in Quebec,
and to obtain over her, when she confronts the civil power
in a hundred ways, more than partial victories, varied by
defeats, will probably long be impossible. A repressive
policy, in the shape of a revival of old, restrictive laws, is
neither possible nor desirable. But it would be rafh to
say that there is no conceivable case in which it might
not be the duty of the State to protect itself by a rigid
enactment against the assaults of Rome on its authority.
Protestant leagues, or Protestant and Liberal alliances,
would, if resorted to as remedies, probably do more harm
than good. There seems to be but one hope ; and that
is, that the people on whom the weight of clerical domina-
tion falls with greatest force, finding the burden intoler-
able, will make a supreme effort to cast it off. But the
time when that effort can be made has not yet come.

Among Roman Catholics in Ontario there is, so far as
I have been able to learn, no sympathy with the arrogant
pretensions of the Quebec Ultramontanes ; and not one
educated Roman Catholic out of a hundred in the former
Province is even aware of the extremes to which the
episcopate of the latter has gone.

■I

11.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

While the din of the battle between the old Galileans
and the New school of Ul tramontanes in Quebec is
ringing in our ears, the successful party is revelling in
the arrogance of victory, and claiming for Rome the right
to set its foot on the neck of the State. It is my purpose
to trace the origin and progress of this contest ; to ex-
amine the weapons which the aggressors have brought
into play ; to show how the Jesuits and priests who formed
the entourage of the late Bishop of Montreal have trailed in
the dust the reputations of dignitaries of their own Church
whom two generations of French Canadian Catholics had
learned to revere, and whose sin was that they were sus-
pected of desiring to retam some share of those ancient
liberties which the teachings of the Syllabus and the de-
crees of the Vatican Council threatened with annihilation.

I shall show that this internecine war, which was in-
tended to silence all opposition to Romish assumption in
the bosom of the Canadian Church, was only a prelimin-
ary step to the general assault upon the liberties of the
nation. The Gallican element is reduced to silence ; but
the Jesuits still perform the part of jailors over the
prostrate forms of the liberal members of their own
Church whom they have overcome. The ready jibe,
the ungenerous taunt, of these jailors smite our ears with
their harsh accents. But while these aggressive Ultra-
montanes hold their prisoners with one hand, they assail
liberty, in all its forms, so hateful to them, with the other.

Bishop Bourget boasts the formation of a ' New
School ' in Quebec, who find their duty and their plea-

za

ROME IN CANADA.

sure in unlimited devotion to the Pope ; who accept with-
out question all his teachings ; who approve of everything
he approves, and condemn everything he condems ; who
reject liberalism, philosophy, Caesarism, rationalism, and
other errors which are described as gliding like venomous
serpents in all ranks of society. This school, he adds,
comprises a good number of Catholics of mark in the vari-
ous degrees of the social hierarchy, especially young men.
Among the latter are distinguished the Pontifical Zouaves,
whom no ties of international obligation prevented being
organized in Canada. The devotees of the new school are
described as belonging to good families, and being fitted
by their talents and their knowledge to appear to advan-
tage in the salon, to shine in the literary circle, and to
make their way to important positions in the State. In
a few years, it is predicted, their number will increase,
and they will be strong enough, by the aid of the Church,
to force open the doors of the legislature and to take pos-
session of the judicial bench.

When that day of triumph arrives, the obnoxious Code
des Cures, written by the Judge Baudry, will cease to be
recognized as an authority in the courts ; and another
wish of Bishop Bourget, and one which is dear to his
heart, will have been gratified. The voice of Rome will
find an echo within the walls of the Canadian Parliament,
in the judicial tribunals, in the legal opinions of the bar, at
thehustings and in the lecture room, in school and college,
everywhere.

The Bishop has not explained how it will be possible to
educate lawyers when Pothier shall have been banished
from the University of Laval, and all the other text-books
of Galilean authors which have been honored with a
place in the Index shall have been burnt. The Bishop
of Birtha, the right hand of the late Bishop of Montreal,
who acted as administrator of the diocese in the absence

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

»3

ol Mgr. Bourget, laments that it is a very rare thing to
find an advocate qui ecritdla Inmiere de la foi. The light
of dogma would prove a will-o'-the-wisp to one destined to
pursue the career of civil law.

This school, though still young, is old enough to ha\re
made its mark ;* and it has undeniably made great pro-
gress during the last four years. By means of an impla-
cable war, through journals founded at the instance of
Bishop Bourget, against the liberal element in the Catholic
Church, it has obtained its first victory ; it boasts of suc-
cesses secured through its influence on the courts of justice,
and of having successfully combated the rights of the
State by the learning and eloquence of the forum.

Bishop Bourget encouraged the study of the writers of
this school, and the sound of his applause formerly mingled
with the anathema which struck the directors of journals
which propagated — we cannot write the word in the pre-
sent tense — mauvais principes ; that is, journals which de-
fended the assailed rights of the civil authority.

Much is expected from M. Pagnuelo's attack upon
Caesarism ; in other words, upon the rights of the State,
the bead of which monstrous serpent the good virgin is
expected to crush with her immaculate heel.f

The writers on whom Bishop Bourget showers his ap-
plause form a motley crowd of journalists, pamphleteers,
and authors of more pretensions ; priests, Jesuits, bishops,
attaches of the Nouveau Monde and the Franc-Parleur.

* For the prograp.ime of the Ultramontane party, see a Circulaire au clerge, by
Bishop Bourget, concernant un ouvrage intitule ttudes historiques et legales sur
la liberty religieuse en Canada, par M. I'Avocat S. Pagnuelo, March ig, 1872,

+ Ces Etudes combattent directment le Casarisme ; que est se second monstre veni-
meux que le St. Sii'ge signala, le 9 Dec, 1854, k I'attention et au ze\e d'environ deux
cents Cardinaux, Patriarches, Archeveaues et Eveques, reuni k Rome pour la memor-
able solemnite de la definition dogmatique de I'lmmaculee Conception de la glorieuse
Vierge Marie Mere de Dieu. Esperons, que cette Vierge, bonne et puissante, ecra-
sera de son pied immacule la tete de ce monstreux serpent, qui se glisse dans tout js les
societi's, pour la boulverser de fond en comble. — Bishop Bourget, Ciiculaire, March, g
1872. ,,.,.-■

14

ROME IN CAN.WA.

Within the last four years they have produced a pyra-
mid of worthless but not innocuous literature, which pro-
bably'contains not less than a hundred separate pid)lica-
tions, all in the French languajije, and varying in size
from the small pamphlet to the heavy octavo. Sometimes
the authors write anonymously, and sometimes un-
der their own signatures ; some hide themselves under
the anonymous veil for a while, and wIkmi they throw
aside the screen to accept, in their own persons, the ap-
plause of the New School, it not unfrequently happens
that a priest or a bishop stands revealed. Through this
process Alp. Villeneuve, one of the most furious assailants
of the liberal section of the Catholic clergy that has ever
appeared in the bosom of the Church, and the Bishop of
Birtha, who undertook to instruct members of Parlia-
ment in their duty, both went.

It is my intention to bring under the eyes of the reader
several of the works which have been ushered into the
world with the direct approbation or the tacit consent of
the late Bishop of Montreal. Their authors proclaim
the sacred duty of intolerance ; and the mildest of them
insist that the dogma of intolerance must never be sur-
rendered.* Some of them admit exceptions founded on
necessity, such as the inability of the Church of Rome to
compel the civil power to suppress all other forms of reli-
gion ; t but their liberality and moderation are treated by
the aggressive party as a scandal and an error which
place them in rebellion to the See of Rome. 1

The writers who take part in this ' implacable war '
boldly assert that Protestantism has no rights ; that it is

♦ L'Abbe Paquet, docteur en theologie et professeur a la faculte de theologie, k
Universitu Laval. La Libdralisme.

+ In this categoiy are Vicar-General Raymond (L'Eglise et I'Etat) of St. Hya-
cinthe, and Abbe Paquet.

X Binan. Broc. Anon. The style of this writer, and his mode ot attack, have a
striking resemblance to those of the |esuit priest Braiin.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

15

not even a religion ; that it is the embodiment of error
and rebellion, neither of which can have any rights;
rebellion which owes the duty of repentarce and submis-
sion to the Church.

The doctors of the New School teach that the laws of
the Church are universal, and are binding on heretics ; §
and that no one, Catholic or Protestant, has a right to
read any book, of any kind, without the special per-
mission of the J3ishop ; and that leave to peruse a pro-
hibited book can only be given when the object of perusal
is a preparation lor refuting the author.

They teach that the Church has a divine power over
Christian marriage ; || that every lay judge who pretends
that he has a right to decide matrimonial causes incurs
anathema ; that a marriage which the Canadian Parlia-
ment assumes to annul for adultery, remains after the
sentence of divorce has been pronounced in full force ;
and that tlie children of either the man or the woman
born of a second marriage contracted according to the
laws of the land are illegitimate.

It was an article of the Gallican liberties that no eccle-
siastic should presume to censure or anathematize a lay
judge for any decision he had given ; but Father Braiin
tells us that the Council of Trent had saved him the
trouble. He forgets to add that France never accepted
the decrees of the Council of Trent in matters of eccles-
iastical policy or discipline.

The crusade of the late Bishop of Montreal was directed
against every branch of the civil power, legislative, execu-
tive, and judicial ; and included the intimidation of the
judiciary. In one of his pastorals he attacked the Code
des Cures, and called upon the clergy to assist him in pre-

S Braiin. Institutes Dogmatiques.
U Braiin, rp. 33.59. and 53.

■

i6

ROME IN CANADA.

venting its being accepted as authority in the civil tri-
bunals.

For a hundred years and more after the conquest it
was usual to defend the rights of the Roman Catholic
Church by appeals to the capitulation of Montreal, to the
treaty of cession, to the Quebec Act, to the Edicts and
Ordinances, the Arn'ts of the Superior Council of Que-
bec, during the French Dominion. They were held to
contain the charter of the liberties of the Catholic Church
in French Canada. They are still sometimes appealed
to, but with an infrequency which is constantly becommg
greater. The professors of that New School, whose rise
and growth liave been so rapid and so great, would joy-
fully burn half of them to-morrow. Some the New
School would find it convenient to retain, and they have
many ingenious contrivances for getting rid of such as
stand in the way of their plans of aggression.

The Edicts and Ordinances have been codified, and the
Code is acknowledged at Rome to be the most Romish
Code of which any country can boast the possession ; * at
least, any country in which the Church of Rome is not
strong enough to exclude the open profession of any other
form of religion. If, in any case, the Code seems to be
less favourable to any pretension the New School may
make, it rejects the code and falls back on the original
instruments ; if it seems to give more, the New School
accepts the Code as having superseded the Edicts and
Ordinances. If neither will suit, the New School dis-
covers that a new custom has superseded both.

But this stage of the controversy may almost be said
to have been passed. The New School finds in the Syl-
labus and the Vatican decrees the infallible rule of truth.
Against infallibility nothing can stand ; it cuts short
all argument ; there is nothing left but the duty of obe-

• Vicar-General Raymond.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

»7

dience. Any one, we read in the modern gospel of the
New School, who does not obey all commands of the
Pope withont question, is no longer a Catholic!

Fortunately, as it may yet prove, there are some things
to which the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty
cannot legally consent. If they could, there is every rea-
son to believe the authority of ♦he Inquisition would now
be recognized in Quebec. It was partly because the de-
crees of tlu^ Congregation of the Index had not been in
force, and the authority of the Inquisition had never
been recognized, in Canada, that the New School lost its
suit in the Guibord case. The Lords of the Privy Coun-
cil tell us, in their decree, that " since the passing of the
13 Geo. III., c. 83, which (s. 5.) incorporates the istof
Elizabeth, the Roman Catholic subjects of the Queen
could not legally consent to be bound by such a rule " as
the Church was seeking to enforce.

But it is far from being certain that the same object
cannot be attained by a side-wind. The Bishops have
obtained a reinforcement of power since the decree of the
Privy Council was rendered : a dozen lines put into the
sliape of an Act of the Quebec Legislature, and giving
them the power to say in which part of the cemetery any
one shall be buried — the consecrated or the unconse-
crated part — a power which, if it had existed before,
would have given the Church of Rome the victory in the
Guibord trial. The Bishops have now all the power
which the adoption of the decrees of the Congregation of
the Index and the recognition of the authority of the In-
quisition by the civil power could give them. They can
excommunicate a person lor the crime of possessing a
prohibited book ; they can, for the same crime, refuse ab-
solution and the right of burial in the consecrated part
of the cemetery. In any case they could do no more.

i fiinan. * '

i8

ROME IN CANADA.

Several of the Canadian bishops seconded the aggres-
sive policy of the Court of Rome with reluctance ; some
of them even showed signs of resistance at first. The
late Archbishop of Quebec republished the celebrated
letter of Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, on the
Vatican Council and distributed it among his clergy.
Vicar-General Cazeau shaied the liberal sentiments of
the Archbishop, and resisted, as far as it was prudent —
farther, as the event proved — the policy of aggression.
Vicar-General Raymond, one of the great lights of the
Catholic Church in Quebec, and whose literary labours
in its behalf are not equalled by any other ecclesiastic,
pleaded for moderation, as the safest policy for the •
Church. The clergy, as a body, would have preferred to
continue tc live in peace with the rest of the population.

But the New School of ecclesiastics, who had adopted
opinions of the latest pattern from Rome, would not stand
quietly by in presence of what they deemed a scandal so
great as this indifference, this semi-opposition, this pesti-
lent moderation. Its band of journalists, pamphleteers,
playwrights, orators, and the allied Jesuits, made a con-
certed attack upon the offenders. They showed their re-
spect for episcopal authority — a virtue on which they
never ceased to insist — when Bishop Bourget resolved
on dividing the parish of Montreal and virtually confis-
cating the property of the Sulpicians, by violent assaults
on the Archbishop of Quebec, the Primate of Lower Can-
ada. To his Vicar-General they meted out similar treat-
ment; and for the Vicar-General ot St. Hyacinthe their
deadliest hostility was reserved.

One of the priests who formed the entourage of the late
Bishop of Montreal, Alp. Villeneuve, wrote a comedy of
between five and six hundred pages, and laid the scene in
the palace oi Pandemonium in hell. Thither he dragged
bishops, priests, statesmen — all who opposed the dismem-

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

X9

berment of the parish of Montreal, or questioned the
light of the Church of Rome to usurp the functions of
the State in the formation of parishes.

A layman, Hon. M. DessauUes, answered La Comedie
Infernale, with considerable effect, though perhaps not al-
together in the most judicious way ; when Bishop Bour-
get, who had enjoyed in silence the acting of Villeneuve's
infernal play, at once swooped down upon his critic, and,
usurping the functions of the Congregation of the Index,
forbade anyone to read the reply, or to possess a copy of it,
without leave from him, or to possess it at all for any other
purpose than to refute it.

The battle now raged along the whole line ; but the
defenders of the ancient citadel fought with their hands
tied. Jesuit spies stood ready to report any utterance on
their part which would be unwelcome at the Vatican ;
and free speech was branded as a crime.

The fierce onslaught of the Ultramontanes on whatever
was respected and respectable among the old Canadian
ecclesiastics bears a sinister resemblance to that made
upon Port Royal by the Jesuits two centuries ago. The
victory remained with the Jesuits ; and from Port Royal
were driven its old inmates, by whom, whatever their
faults, it had been made famous. But in those days the
Jesuits, instead of writing comedies in which ecclesiastics
are made to play a discreditable part in Pandemonium,
made it the great sin of Racine's life that he had given to
the world his immortal plays. To the remains of Mo-
liere, the great French comedian, a grave was refused in
consecrated ground, until the King softened the bishop
into allowing a private burial to take place under cover
of darkness. But then Moliere did not show the world
Archbishops and Vicars-General inspired by the breath of
demons.

The gradual renewal of the episcopate will do much

2

\

20

ROME IN CANADA.

temporarily to realize the aims of the New School. Only
Ultramontanes will be selected when a bishopric becomes
vacant. A bishop who shows any lingering signs of a recalci-
trant spirit, and neglects to die, may be made as unhappy as
his enemies could well wish to see him. He may have at
his side a coadjutor^ with the right of future succession,
waiting for his vacant shoes, and daily doing things
which may put into his superior's head the thought of re-
signation as a means of escape from an intolerable tor-
ment; for for bishops there is a kind of ecclesiastical Chiltern
Hundreds. By this ingenious process, Bishop Pinson-
neault, of London, became Bishop of Birtha, and remov-
ed to Montreal, where he fell into all the plans of Bishop
Bourget.

It is doubtful whether the late Archbishop of Quebec
ever gave a hearty assent to the Vatican decrees. As
late as May, 1872, when asked for a puff episcopal of
Pagnuelo's Liberie Religieuse en Canada, of which the
Bishop of Montreal could not find words strong enough
adequately to describe the merits, the Archbishop,
frankly expressing his opinion of works of this kind,
wrote: 'There is danger of taking for absolute truth
what is matter of opinion : what the Church has not
thought proper to condemn, is sometimes ill-spoken of ;
the ideal of what ought to be tends to cause the reality
to be forgotten ; a future looked forward to with impati-
ence, the real past and the difficulties of the present not
being sufficiently taken into account.'

The Archbishop evidently had misgivings about the
discretion of M. Pagnuelo's zeal which he tried to con-
ceal ; and yet this writer is one of the most respectable
and the least aggressive of the New School.

The New School teaches that the Chuich of Rome
alone has the right to say whether the decrees of the
Council of Trent are in force in any particular country ;*

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

ar

|me
the

though these decrees, so far as they related to discipline,
were rejected by the Government of France and never
allowed to take effect in Canada.

The New School teaches what is not new, and what
only slaves can accept as true : that the Church has the
power to depose sovereigns and to release subjects from
their oath of allegiance.f

The New School teaches that the Roman Catholic
episcopate of Canada is as much above the civil power
as the supernatural is superior to the natural ; that the
Pope is the Church ; and that the Church contains the
State ; that every human being is subject to the Pope ;
that the Pope has the right to command the obedience of
the king, and to control his armies ; that the civil author-
ity can place no limit to the ecclesiastical power ; and
that it is a ' pernicious doctrine ' to allege that it has
the right to do so ;| that to deny the priests the right to
use their spiritual authority to control the elections is to
exclude God from the regulation of hnuian affairs ;§ that
civil laws which are contrary to the pretensions of Rome
are null and void ; and that the judiciary has no power
to interpret the true sense of laws so passed, which are,
in fact, not laws at all ;|| that civil society is inferior to the
Church ; and that it is contrary to the natural order of

♦ Bishop Bourget. Lettre Pastorale concerning la Sepulchre de Joseph Guibord,
Oct. 3, 1875.

+ A Ouimet, in a note to the piices justificatives of La Comedie Infernak, says of b.
Sulpician priest who had expressed a different opinion : ' It may be seen by this
phrase that M. Bedard, in spite of his clear mind, had not entirely free himself of the
ideas current at St. Sulpice, Montreal. If he had had the happiness to \'i\ e in a more
Catholic society, he would not have doubted the right of the Pope to depose sovereigns,
as the Church teaches.'

X Mgr. de Rimouskt. Lettre au clerge seculier et rSgulier et aux fideles du diocese,
issued on the occasion of the late Provincial elections in Quebec.

§ Sermon de La Grandeur Monseigneur A. Pinsonneault, Eveque de Birtha, pro-
nonc6ians I'Eglise de St. Henri des Tanneries, Dimanche, le 4 Juillet, 1S7J.

H M. R. Lefranc. Les influences indues dans le Comte de Montmagny, ijth
Sept., 1875.

4a

ROME IN CANADA.

things to pretend that, the Church, can be cited before the
civil tribunals ; as if Pope Pius IX., in the concordat with
Austria, had not agreed that the secular judges should
have cognizance of the civil causes of clerks, such as
•contracts, debts, and the right of succession to private
property.

The New School is too avaricious of power to be satis-
fied with the tremendous influence which the pulpit and
the confessional place at its disposal. It turns the altar
into a tribune, and seeks to wield the power of the period-
ical press.

The late Bishop of Montreal kaew how to use, as well
as to curb, the press. In 1854, he recommended the set-
ting up of a journal to propagate ' sound principles ' (les
bons principes), and he foresaw that it would be more
effective and would excite less prejudice if conducted by
laymen, than if known to be exclusively in the hands of
priests. But both priests and bishops figure among the
contributors of the journals whose mission it is to dis-
seminate les bons principes. Even when these journals are
written by laymen, the effective control is admitted to be
in the hands of priests.* And the whole clerical army is
under the supreme control of Rome.

Bishop Bourget has given a vivid picture of the liberal
press, t The ' liberal journal,' he says, ' is that which
pretends to be liberal in its religious and political opin-
ions.' ' No one,' he adds, 'is allowed to exercise freedom
in his religious or political opinions ; it is for the Church
to teach its children to be good citizens, as well as good
Christians. In teaching them the true principle of faith
and morals, of which she alone is the depository . . . her
mission is to teach sovereigns to govern with wisdom, and
subjects to obey with joy.'

* Bishop Bourget. Circulaire ii Mai, i8jO.
+ Fioretti Vescovili.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

33

The Bishop arrives at the conclusion ' that every journal
which pretends to be free in its religious and political
opinions is in error ; ' and that ' liberty of opinion is no-
thing else than the liberty ol error, which causes the
death of the soul, which can only live by truth ; ' * thus,'
he adds, 'every journal which professes liberty of opin-
ions causes its readers to walk in the ways of error, which
conducts society, as well as individuals, to ruin and to
death.'

Sometimes Bishop Bourget directs his maledictions
against a particular journal which has presumed to use
the liberty he condemns. Twice he denounced Le Pays *
Its offence was, that it had applauded Victor Emanuel ;
had expressed opinions similar to those found in the Paris
Siecle, liberal opinions in fact ; that its Paris correspon-
dent desired to see the whole of Italy put under Victor
Emanuel; that it had published the proclamations of that
chief of rebels. Garibaldi, and,done a great many other for-
bidden things. In Le Pays the right of theatrical criticism,
if not condemnatory, was denied, though that privilege
can be indulged with immunity by journals which defend
les bons principes and are recognized as arms of the Church
militant ; and the Jesuit priests give additional proofs of
piety by opening a theatre, provided with stage and
scenery, in the basement of their church, in Rue Beaudry,
Montreal. The professed object is the cultivation of
music ; but as a matter of fact tragedies and even come-
dies are there put on the stage. The clergy were told
that it was '^heir duty to use every means to prevent Le
Pays seducing the faithful committed to their care. The
hint was acted upon, and their persistent opposition finally
made it necessary to bring the career of the liberal journal
to a close.

The National, a journal of pale and almost neutral tint,.

* Supplement au mandement du 31 Mai, 1860. Circulaire 31 Mai, i860.

r

24

ROME IN CANADA.

has survived a denunciation publicly made in the Cathe-
dral of St. Hyacinthe, for having presumed to question
the wisdom of observing so many days' fast in Lent. It
is not probable that this journal will ever again be hon-
oured in the same way. It now disclaims all sympathy
with the Liberals and Radicals of Europe; avers that it is
in sympathy only with those who are occupied with the ad-
ministration ol the affairs of the country in an economical
point of view ; and that it is above all things practical.
L'Evenement, a journal conducted by a Senator of Canada,
found it necessary formally to retract the statement
that it is ' always dangerous to introduce religious princi-
ples into political contests; ' and more recently it received
a warning from the Archbishop for publishing an analysis
of a sermon in which the tribunals have since found evi-
dence of undue clerical influence. A parish priest has
recently denounced from the altar the Gazette de Sorel,
and forbidden his parishioners to receive or read it. All
this shows the keen and all-pervading surveillance exer-
cised by the Church of Rome over the expressions of
opinion daily made in the press, and the power of the
clergy in repressing free discussion. The condemned ex-
pression of the Quebec journalist was intended to be
nothing more than a mild protest against the interference
of the clergy in political elections ; it was tortured and
twisted by a host of antagonistic writers, who had no
difficulty in finding in it the essence of impiety.

The Fifth Council of Quebec took upon itself the regu-
lation of the press, and it claimed immunity from criticism
for all establishments to which the bishops extend their
protection.*

Some of the advice given, such as that adversaries

•^ i; iiC faut pas traduire devant le tribunal incompetent de I'opinion publique des
eti<htis< '.. .-.Its dont lep eveques sont les protecteurs et les juges natiirels. Arch
TaR'berenu, Mand, Juin 16, 1875.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

25

iir

es

should be treated with charity, moderation, and respect,
besides being good, was much needed. The writers of
the New School have, in this respect, been great
offenders.

But this Council made it the duty ot the clergy to wage
perpetual war upon the independent, non-clerical press.
The instructions are to make the faithful avoid the danger
of reading 'bad journals ;' all journals being bad which
do not unhesitatingly accept the Syllabus and the Encycli-
cal for their guide. To journalists who surrender them-
selves to this guidance every encouragement is to be given.
In judging a public journal, the priests are to be guided
by the dogmas of the Church, the teaching found in the
decrees of general councils, in the constitutions of the
Popes, and in orthodox fathers and doctors. The whole
debatable ground on which Roman Catholics take differ-
ent sides is to remain free ; and opinions not yet con-
demned by the Church are to enjoy exemption from
censure.

Armed with this authority, and burthened with this duty,
the priests take care that no newspaper, printed in the
French language, which does not come up to the required
standard shall find among their flocks countenance
enough to ensure its continued existence. For the con-
duct of the clerical organs, even those which are in closest
connection with the episcopate, the Church disclaims all
responsibility.

The worst offenders against the rules laid down by the
Council may safely reckon on immunity^, provided they
take up the cudgels in favour of the Church. The Uni-
versity of Laval may be spitefully assailed by an unworthy
son whom she had cast from her bosom without forfeit-
ing his position as an approved Catholic journalist. And
this may take place, though there is a corps of ten priests
at Montreal whose duty it is to exercise a constant sur-

m

i|

26

ROME IN CANADA.

veillance over every form of publication issued, with a
view of directing replies to be made to what is distaste-
fnl, procuring episcopal prohibition of obnoxious works^
or denouncing them to the Congregation of the Index.

A journalist whose profession of faith is put in these
words may, for the rest, do what he likes : • I believe in
the Syallabtis and in ecclesiastical immunities, in the rights
of the Church and its supremacy over the State.' * Such
an one is an acceptable apostle of the doctrines of the
New School ; and one in this position may safely curse
even those whom the Pope blesses, provided it is done in
the interest of the 'good cause.' Proof: On the i ith April,
1876, the Pope gave the apostolic benediction to each of
the directors, professors, and pupils of the University of
Laval ; and M. Langlier, one of the professors, was,,
from about that date for some months afterwards, almost
daily described as little short of a monster, by the clerical
press of the city of Quebec, because, in his capacity of
advocate, he held a brief in the Charlevoix election case,
and would be obliged to press charges of undue in-
fluence against certain of the parish priests in that
county.

It has become the habit of the cures, in the country
parishes, to denounce in the church every journal which is
displeasing to them on political grounds ; to proscribe and
anathematize it as pernicious ; to threaten to refuse the
sacraments to all who still persist in continuing to receive it.
The confessional is used as a means of discovering the dis-
obedient ; and ^en the wives of the subscribers to the
obnoxious journals are refused absolution, if they fail to
influence their husbands to obey the priest's command.t

When the authority of the bishops is insufficient to
constrain the journals, and obtain perfect obedience to

♦ Canadien, July 3, 1876
t Le Reveil, Dec.23, 1876

\

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

27

their mandates, recourse is had to the Congregation of
the Propaganda at Rome, from which an injunction
comes, forbidding the faithful to read the recalcitrant
prints. Three years ago a rescript came from Rome for-
bidding the faithful to read certain journals in whose col-
umns the conduct of the ecclesiastical authorities had
been criticised.* This direction of the Holy See every
one to whom it comes is obliged to obey ; no one is at
liberty to reply, or to oppose (il n'est permis a personne
de repliquer et de s'insurger).

The Congregation of the Propaganda, Bishop Bourget
is frank enough to tell us, is charged with the apostolic
surveillance ct Canada, and he seems to infer that its
watchful eye is kept upon the Canadian press, with which
it may at any time interfere, without special direction.f
Armed with this authority from Rome, the Bishop in-
structed the priests of his dioceses to refuse the sacra-
ments to all who read, or give effectual encouragement to,
journals in which criticism of the conduct of the clergy is
to be found ; and the editors are to be subjected to the
same treatment. Such are the means to which, in these
days, Rome resorts in the Province of Quebec to stifle the
voice of free discussion.

Ten years ago, the Nouveau Monde was brought into
existence, as the organ of Bishop Bourget ; the priests of
the diocese became canvassing agents to extend its circu-
lation, and in some cases they sounded its praises from
the altar. The writers were the intimate friends of the
Bishop, and most of them were ecclesiastics under his
control. So strictly has this journal spoken for Bishop

* ' Curent (Episcopi) ne hujusmodi contcntiones per eph^merides et libellos a
catholicis exerceantur, utque eos qui in hoc deliquerint coercere, et si opus fuerit ear-
umdem ephemeridum lectionem fidelibui prohibere non omittant:' (Rescrit du 23
Mars, 1873.)

i Lettre Pastorale concemant le lib^ralisme catholique,le8 journaux, etc. Fevrier i,
1876.

28

ROME IN CANADA.

Bourget, that, far from respecting the authority of his ec-
clesiastical superior, it attacked with fierceness and ran-
cour, which are more completely developed under the
soutane than elsewhere, the late Archbishop of Quebec.

To this order of writers comfort and encouragement
came from Rome ; and Bishop Bourget hastened to make
known the glad tidings.* The priests are called upon to
load with eulogy the young men who, as journalists and
authors, place their pens at the service of the Church.
What line they are to take is distinctly marked out.
They are to propagate * Conservative principles, which
can alone make the people good, moral, peaceable, in-
dustrious, and above all sincerely religious.' * It is,' the
Bishop adds, ' to accomplish the noble task that the Im-
mortal Pontiff invites us, in his admirable encyclical Inter
Multiplices.'

Pius IX. instructs the Bishops to excite the ardour of
Roman Catholic writers to defend the cause of Catholic
society, and to admonish with fatherly prudence remiss-
ness of duty. Bishop Bourget interprets this encyclical
to mean that these writers are to be encouraged in ' the
defence of the rights of the Holy See and the execution
of its decrees in all their force ; in the discussions and
contests against the authority of the Holy See, and the
pursuit of errors even in the most obscure retreats.' It
cannot be complained that the writers of the New School
have not carried out these instructions to the letter.

The Holy Office condemned the Courtier de St. Hya-
cinthe in i860; and in 1876, the Pope gave his benediction
to that ' good Catholic journalist' of the Courrier du Can-
ada, with right of his children, to the third generation, to
a reversion in the benediction. As theCourrier has sev-
eral times changed its edi.tor, it is to be presumed that
the dew of the Papal blessing fell upon the more stable

* Circulaire6 Mai., 1871.

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

99

element of the Courrier represented by the proprietor.
A blessing descending to the third generation, it is con-
ceivable, may fall upon the head ot something far less
worthy than that of an approved Catholic journalist.

The Courrier de St. Hyacinthe now ranks among
the obedient echoes of the Church. To a journal in the
position which it occupied in i860, forcible conversion or
death was the only alternative. On the condition of sub-
mission it is enabled to illustrate the theory of the sur-
vival of the fittest.

The Bishops are willing to concede freedom of discus-
sion to one side ; they are willing to concede the greatest
license to one side ; but they will allow no liberty to the
other. Vicar-General Langevin, of Rimouski, in the
summer of 1875, identified the preachers of liberalism
with the Rouges ;* and in a private letter to a cure, which
got into print, he stigmatized as an offence against God
the voting for such a candidate. The journal de Quebec
had been guilty of the offence of contending, in opposi-
tion to the Ultramontanes, that ' the citizens have the right
and are at liberty to express their opinions, on political
subjects, by tongue or pen, or in any other way, without
having their rights interfered with by the ecclesiastica
authorities.'

The Vicar-General confounded the audacious journal-
ist, pointing triumphantly to the Encyclical of December
8th, 1864. That free discussion is a natural and impre-
scriptible right, this ecclesiastic brands as a false assump-
tion ; and he asks, with the air of a man who feels that he is
crushing his adversary, * If you ask so much liberty for
yourself, why refuse to the priest the rights of the citizen ? '
But this was precisely what the 'journal had not done.
It had denied the right of priest to interfere with the

* Lettre de M. le Grand Vicar Langevin aux M. le R^dacteur du Journal de Qui-
htc,ai Aotlt, 1876.

go ROME IN CANADA.

free choice of the electors, by exerting the influence of his
sacred office and the bringing to bear terrors of spiritual
censure ; but it distinctly admitted his right, as a citizen,
to express his opinion. The separation of the two char-
acters is all but impossible, and the priest is at present
not in mood to make the attempt. How a journal can
be silenced by an abuse of the confessional, the public
has been very frankly told. And the journal, which was
warned by a rival of its impending fate, has, through the
interference of the clergy, ceased to exist : died ol en-
forced inanition.

•If,' says the Courrier dti Canada, a journalist in posses-
sion of the papal benediction extending to the third gen-
eration, ' a penitent does ill by reading your journal (Le
Bien Public, a rival in business and an opponent in poli-
tics) do you imagine that, you can dictate to the confes-
sor what he ought to do or not to do to this penitent?'

He (the confessor) alone is judge whether

he ought to hind or loose. It is God which has given him
this power ; he must account to God, not to the civil law,
for its use.'

In this way the confessional may be abused ; and if it
be impossible, as it probably is, to attach responsibility to
a priest for his conduct, on account of the secrecy which
oi necessity enshrouds it, any journal mignt be ruined
without ever being certain whence the blow came. But
it is permissible to take notice ol any external act ; and
as it has become known that certain priests threatened
to refuse the sacraments to readers of the Bien Public^
they might he called on to justify — that is, show good
reason for menaces they had given — in an action lor slan-
der.

II the Courrier du Canada will examine its own file, it
will find in its issue of May 25th, 1874, a letter from
Vienna, headed La discussion des Lois Con/essiohelles, con-

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

3«

taininp the statement that the Bishop of Stepischncgg had
shown that 'la nouvelle loi mettrnit I'Etat cl I'Eglise sur
le mcme pied de guerre que les sont actualement dans la
plupart des Etats Europeans.' M. Stremeyz, Minister
of Public Instruction, said the Government intended
strictly to enforce the law. This shows that when the
confessional has been abused, the result has been the en-
actment of laws to afford citizens protection agamst that
abuse.

The Dien Public was very far from being extreme in
opinion or violent in tone. It neither professed ' Catho-
lic Liberalism,' nor made itself the apostle of the doc-
trines of the 'liberal Catholics' of Europe. On these
points it left no room for doubt. Its proprietor twice ap-
plied to the eccleiastical authorities for directing guid-
ance. He even withdrew an election protest, where he
believed the election must have been voided on account
of the exercise of undue influence of which there was
proot on the part ot the clergy. But these acts of sub-
mission and tokens of good will did not prevent the clergy
from continuing to abuse the influence of their holy office
by unduly interfering in elections. Against that abuse
the Bien Public continued to protest. This was its
offence ; this it was that brought down on it the opposi-
tion of the clergy, and the faithful were enjoined not to
read the offending journal. The prohibition proved fatal :
the Bien Public ceased to ^st. In such a state of things,
free discussion is impossible. The prerogatives of the
press and the rights of the electors alike become the prey
, of clerical tyranny.

An attempt was recently made to find whether, in ac.
tual practice, a French Canadian journal which avoided
religious questions could command liberty of discussion
in the political sphere without falling down to worship
the idol of party. With this view Le RCveil came into

32

ROME IN CANADA.

existence at Quebec. But no sooner had the prospectus-
appeared than the forthcoming journal was condemned
beiore its birth, for its promise to avoid rehgious ques-
tions. That the clerical journals spoke by the book was
afterwards evident from the fact that the Archbishop of
Quebec repeated this criticism. In a circular to the
clergy of his diocese (August 13th, 1876), that functionary
characterized the promised abstention, in a writer call-
ing himself Catholic, as a species of apostacy, on the
gf' und that ' the very nature of political, social, and edu-
cational questions recalls the idea of religion.' In the
very means which the founders of the Reveil took to
escape the censures of the clergy — leaving the whole re-
ligious field in their undisputed possession — the Arch-
bishop espied indications of an anti-religious tendency !
With the official denunciation of Le Reveil expired the
last hope of a French Canadian journal engagmg in free
political discussion without bringing down on it the wrath
of the clergy. Their opposition soon proved the death
of the Reveil.

The Reveil had made itself the advocate of secular
education, in which the Archbishop saw atheism. It was
charged with having copied, without protest, something
which made in favour of the development theorj', known
in these days as Darwinism ; it had copied a remark of
Castelar which enshrined the error that it is possible for
a man to be religious without being either Protestant or
Catholic. But the real offence of the speech was its advo-
cacy of toleration. Judged by a decree of the fourth Coun-
cil of Quebec, Le7?t't;^fZ had taken rank among /6'5 //mut'afs
journaux. Nothing remained for the Archbishop to do
but to instruct each priest to find out whether the offending
journal was read in his parish ; and, if any of the parish-
oners had, in the past, been guilty of reading it, to inter-
dict them from repeating the offence.

I i

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

33

)f
)r

Vo
g

Necessarily the interdict was confined to the diocese of
Quebec. The proprietor of the interdicted journal at
once made preparations for moving to Montreal ; but not
before making a courageous and masterly response, to
which reference will be hereafter made. The tide of in-
tolerance has hitherto run higher in the diocese of Mon-
treal than in that of Quebec ; but, in spite of years of re-
pression, thought is likely sooner to assert its freedom in
the city to which Le Reveil moved than in that from
which it fled before the anathema of the Archbishop.
Only fifteen numbers had been issued when the denuncia-
tion was made ; so short is the impunity allowed to free
discussion by a Quebec journalist whose mother tongue
is French.

' To a Canadian Bishop,' says M.Buies, the condemn-
ed editor, * for a journal to commit the crime of being
born without permission, appeared so extraordinary, and
even provoking, that you (addressing the Archbishop)
could not fail to find in it an anti-religious tendency.'
Such a tendency it would not, we venture to say, be pos-
sible for an impartial judge to discover.

The writers and orators of the New School show their
zeal in propagating les hons principes, by daily giving ut-
terance to the most detestable sentiments. Even advo-
cates whose minds are formed by the study of Gallican
authors can sometimes be transformed into ardent
Ultramontanes ; a fact which attests the growth of the
New School.

M. Charles Thibault may be taken as one of the most
brilliant examples.* 'The crime of our epoch,' he finds
to consist in many things : * The want of union,' pre-
sumably among French Canadians ; ' in indifference ; in

* Discourse de M.Charles Thibault, ccr.,avocat. En reponse ilia santi' des ancient
£Uves du Petit S6minaire de Ste. Marie de Monnoir, le isOctobre, 1875, a la fi':te de»
' Nocesd'Or' du fondatur de ce Petit Seminaire, le Rev, E. Crevier, V.-G., du dio-
cdse de St. Hyacinthe.

3 ROME IN CANADA.

entering into pactions with evil ; in consenting to argue
with it, which is compromising ; in the toleration of error,
and placing it on a footing of equality -"vith the truth,' as
it is in the Church of Rome ; * in forgetting that liberty of
a creature consists, as Bonald says, in the faculty of reach-
ing the natural object of its being. Finally, the evil ol
our epoch is that it has lost sight of the imprescriptible
rights of the Church, and the duties which the State owes
to it.'

The New School wishes to remedy all this. And when
that remedy comes, where will modern civilization be ?

Of soldiers necessary for the present combat M. Thi-
bault finds a want, but he scarcely expects better from the
debased condition of modern society — of soldiers — yes,
soldats — writers, orators, savants, men of letters. But why
soldiers ? Pontifical Zouaves to restore the civil power ?
That is the dream of the New School ; a dream that tells of
nightmare.

While efforts are made to fasten on the minds of Italian
children, by the use of rhyme, the prediction that the
Pope will, in a short time, be at the head of an universal
monarchy,* our Canadian Ultramontanes are urged to
keep their armour bright. A journal published at Mon-
treal, and founded more than five years ago, the Bul-
letin Mensuel, is devoted to the restoration of the
temporal power. It energetically opposed the enlistment
bill, on the ground that it would be an impediment to the
enrolment of Zouaves in favour of the Pope. This journal
has a circulation of six hundred copies, and its writers
show their zeal by giving their services gratuitously.
Published with the avowed object of aiding the restora-
tion of the temporal power, by inciting young French

♦ Mr. Gladstone (Speeches of Pius IX.) gives the following example :
Poco tempo ancora, e Pio
Kegnerii sul mondo intiero.

'4.

f

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

35

Canadians to hold themselves ready once more to take
up arms in favour of the Pope, the Bulletin Mensxiel has
had the extreme good fortune to receive the special bless-
ing of Pius IX. It was founded by the members ol the
Union Allet, which is under the control of the Jesuits.
The Pontifical Zouaves of Canada, who have already
once gone to Rome with arms in their hands, and there
joined the Papal troops in fighting against Italian unity,
and to prop up the tottering temporal power, of which
they witnessed the fall, are now ready to fight for the res-
toration. In an address intended to be presented to Pope
Pius IX. on the golden wedding of his episcopate, and
drawn up three months in advance, they recall the fact
that, some years ago, they had the happiness to serve his
Beatitude ; and they sigh for the time when they will be
again called upon to put on their ancient uniform, ' pour
le triomphe . . . pour la revanche!' And they pray
heaven that their wishes, in this respect, may be granted.

When, in the year 1867, the recruiting of French Can-
adians commenced, with a view of forming a battalion of
Papal Zouaves, some of the Bishops openly applauded
the movement. The Bishop of Montreal commended
the 'noble project;' he showered upon it a heart-felt
blessing and wished it complete success. The enrolment,
in his eyes, shed glory on the r ^untry and brought a ben-
ediction on the inhabitants. The young men who were
inveigled into this enrolment were told that they were
going to fight for the principle on which humanity rested,
and that the}' were giving ' an admirable example of
devotion to the Catholic cause.'*

The true description of this setting on foot of an expe-
dition to take part m an international quarrel in which
Canada had no concern, is, that it was a flagrant breach
of the duties of neutrality.

* Bishop Bourget. Lettre Pastorale, D

3

■m

36

ROME IN CANADA.

Religious women who spend their lives in Canadian
cloisters were called upon by the voice of episcopal au-
thority, which conveyed something of a command, to fur-
nish military clothing for the Canadian Zouaves. A pro-
mise was made, in the name of the Zouaves, that they
would honour and respect the habiliments made by the
virgin hands of the sisters of Christ, whom Bishop Bour-
get flattered with the title of heroines.*

This appeal was not without effect. In those cloister-
ed solitudes, the walls of which are supposed to shut
out the news of current events, the fair fingers of religious
women were applied to the unwonted task of making sol-
diers' clothes. The filibusters were flattered with the title
of * soldiers of Christ's Vicar,' and some of them were half
persuaded that they were so many pious pilgrims about
to set out for the tomb of the apostles with the view of
delivering the holy land from the presence of the infidel.
' Soldier qi the Pope' would always be a glorious title
in the estimation of true Christians. They were going, so
they were told, to make charges brilliant and impe-
tuous enough to vie with those made at Sebastopol and
Solferino. Theyvwere conjured to devote themselves to
the Pope and defend him valiantly. ' Once more,'
Bishop Bourget concluded, 'go; but never forget that
religion and the country expect that you will prove your-
selves, everywhere and on all occasions, worthy of Can-
ada, which has produced so many good Christians and
valiant warriors.' Adding the benetUction, in the name
of the Trinity, the Bishop dismissed the filibusters on
their sanguinary errand. t

The Pope expressed his lively satisfaction at the acces-
sion to his cause of the Canadian filibusters. Subscrip-

* Circulaire aux Religieuses, 8 D^c, 1867.

f Allocution aux Zouaves Canadien ii leur depart pour Rome, ig Fev., 1868

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

37

tions for the cause which they had espoused were taken
up everywhere, commencing in the convents and colleges,
the example being set by children of both sexes to their-
parents and fellow-citizens, under what influence need
not be told.*

The appeals made to the Papal Zouaves of Canada to
prepare to fight for the restoration of the temporal power
is made to willing ears ; and when these disbanded fili-
busters tell the Pope that they desire nothing so much as
to be again called upon to take the field, there is no doubt
they are in real earnest. They have been taught to be-
lieve that the name Papal Zouave is a synonym for
glory ; and the vanity which the belief implies has struck
so deep that it will not be easily uprooted.t

The sovereignty of the Church, so loudly insisted upon,
implies the subordination of the State. These Ultramon-
tane writers affirm;): that any law passed by the civil
power, with a view of preventing an abuse of ecclesiasti-
cal authority, is null and void ; and that it would be Ihe
duty of the judges, if asked to interpret it, to refuse to re-
cognize as a law what has no other- than an imaginary ex-
istence. If we allow the premises, that the Church is su-
perior to the State, we must admit the conclusion ; but
Ultramdntanism has not yet been able to influence opin-
ion sufficiently to obtain a recognition of a claim which
implies the total destruction of civil liberty.

Abbe Begin, a professor of the faculty of theology in
Laval University, teaches the students who are to become
the future priests, bishops, and archbishops of Quebec
that the doctrine which makes every human being sub-

rip-

* Bishop Bourget. Lettre Pastorale 8 Dec, 1867.

+ J'ai prononce ce mot les Zouaves pontificaux. Quelle pure gloire il rappeile I —
Mgr. Raymond, De I'Intervention du Pretre dans Tordre intellectual et social. Lecture
prononce devant I'Union Catholique de St. Hyacinthe, le 8 Dec, 1867.

X R. Lefranc, 15 Sept., 1875.

38

ROME IN CANADA.

I !
i

ject to the Pope is an absolute and eternal truth ; that
the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual author-
ity is clearly established ; and that of the two swords the
spiritual is to be used by the Church, and the material for
her benefit, and at her bidding.*

The New School has indeed travelled far from the old
landmarks of the Galilean liberties, when it proclaims anew
the monstr ^us i.^ uiims of Boniface VIII. ' The Pope,'
Abbe Begin tells the students of Laval, * is constituted, by
Jesus Christ himself, head of the Church Universal, and
pastor of its flock : whence it follows that all without ex-
ception, kings, princes, archbishops, bishops, etc., are
subject to his sTuitu 1 authority.' This professor of the-
ology accepts ti Hi i.A.. ■.ption of Boniface VIII., that
armies as well as kings ai-i Jo move under the direction
of the Church; th.;r fi.e mai. >'. sword ought to be sub-
ordinate to the spiritva', Sirica :'i'-. "spiritual power is in-
contestibly superior in nobieneb.> ai-d dignity to every
earthly power. ' It is certain,' he says, ' that Boniface
clearly established the dependence and subordination of
the civil to the religious authority ; ' ' that the secular
power ought never to prevent the Church from attaining
its end, and that it ought, in certain cases, to assist it in
doing so ; ' that, in certain cases, 'the Pope has the right,
which it is his duty to resume, to excommunicate kings,
and to release their subjects from their oath of fidelity.'

In the bull Unnm Sanctum, which is the foundation of
the claim of the Popes to depose sovereigns. Abbe
Begin finds an exposition of an ancient and divine right
of the Roman Pontiffs, conformable to the teachings of
the fathers of the Church : that the civil power is bound
to defend and protect the Church.

But we are not living in the middle ages, and there is
ample evidence that a king excommunicated by Papal

* La Primaute et I'lnfallibilite des Souverains Pontifes.

)f

t

If

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

39

authority mfty still retain the allegiance of his subjects.
Nevertheless we are not entitled to conclude that to in-
stil into the minds of students, who are hereafter to form
the clerical army of Rome in the Province of Quebec, as
an unquestionable and eternal truth, that there may be
cases in which Roman Catholics are bound to obey the
Pope in opposition to their own sovereign, has not a per-
nicious and dangerous tendency. And when the poison
has once permeated the minds of the young clergy, what
means are there of applying an antidote ? Will they be
likely to accept a refutation of these doctrines, or even to
listen to it ?

Dr. Fessler, Secretary- General of the Vatican Council,
attempted to redute the bull Unum Sanctum to the nar-
rowest limits ;* pursuing, in this respect, a policy in
direct contradistinction to that of the Canadian Ultranion-
tanes ; which shows that pretensions which would be
rejected in Europe are expected to be readily accepted in
Quebec. His reading of this bull is : ' And this we de-
clare, we say, we define, and we pronounce, that it is
necessary for the salvation of every human creature that
he should be subject to the Roman Pontiff.' Fessler's
book is issued with the express approbation of Pius IX.:
it follows that the Abbe Begin is more Papal than th
Pope ; though the difference between saying that all are,
and that all ought to be, subj.ict to the Pope, is not great.

The Archbishop of Quebec seems to have had a suspi-
cion that the abbe's work might possibly have its imper-
fections, as his qualified approbation, * nihil obstat quin.
typis mandetur,' suggests. Fessler contends that the only
words which contain a definition de fide in the bull Unum
Sanctum are those quoted above. It follows that the New
School which has been nursed into life in Quebec is more
extravagant in its pretensions than the foremost defender

* The True and the False Infallibility of the Popes.

40

ROME IN CANADA.

! I

of Papal authority in Europe, or even the Pope himself.

Father Braiin also contends that • the universal laws of
the Church are obligatory on heretics ; ' and he holds it
as a general principle * that the Church has jurisdiction
over all who have been baptized, and consequently over
heretics ; " for * though they are rebels and apostates who
are outside of the Church, yet uf right they belong to the
Church. Their rebellion and apostacy do not free them
Irom their obligations of duty. The sheep which have
strayed from {he fold always belong to the master whom
they have left. The soldiers who desert remain subjects
of the prince whose flag they have deserted, and they will
be judged according to the laws of the country.' Father
Braiin quotes from Suarez, a great authority with Ultra-
montanes, to prove that heretics are always under the
obligation to return to the bosom oi the Church.

Prudent Roman Catholic writers, in Europe, do not
employ themselves in unceasing Iteration of these revived
pretenses. In Canada, the same prudential restraints
which operate there are not felt. And yet the number
ol persons among us who are ready at an hour's notice
to prove that the serpent which hisses so loudly has no
poison in its sting is not small.

The absolute subjection of the State to the Church is
a well worn theme by writers of the New School. ' To
be taught by the Church and receive from her the bap-
tism of salvation,' says one of these writers,* ' it is neces-
sary that the nations should submit themselves to the
Church ; that they accept with docility the pre-eminence
of her teaching authority. Nations are, therefore, bound
to receive and obey the dogmatic and moral decrees of

* Quelques Considerations sur les r^ponses de quelques th^ologiens de Quebec aux
-questions proposes par Mgr. de Montreal et Mgr. de Rimouski, etc., etc., etc., par la
redaction du Franc-Parleur. For the publication of this brochure Adolphe Ouimet
■s&ya he takes the entire responsibility, but it is evidently froni the pen of a theologian-

-^m

THE RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

41

the infallible Church ; bound to listen to the teachings of
the Church and obey its laws. Now, if the nations are
bound to show this submission and docility toward the
Church, is it not because they are subordinate, or because
the Church has the right of pre-eminence over them ? It
nations are subordinate to the Church in matters of
authority, if the Church takes precedence of the nations
in matters of authority, does she not do so in virtue of the
fact that the Church is the head of the nation ? Jesus
Christ did not say to his apostles : Go teach a part, a
fraction, of the nation ; he said : Go teach the nations ;
that is to say, every human society and whatever it com-
prises ; the little and the great, the poor and the rich, the
ignorant and the learned, the plebeian and the patrician,
subjects and kings. Besides, the Church, the constituted
teaching authority, having in view the salvation of all,
kings and princes, chiefs of the civil power are bound
to attend to their salvation, and to acquire a knowledge
of eternal truth ; it is evident that they ought to submit
to the Church, the sole guardian of eternal truth and sal-
vation. Besides, the Church could not fulfil its mission
towards the State if kings, princes, the State, were inde-
pendent of the Church ; the State independent, means a
State which can obey or refuse to obey ; in not obeying
the Church, the State closes the way of truth and of
eternal life to its subjects.'

In another passage, this writer almost outdoes himself.
* All truth, moral or dogmatic, defined by the Pope with
the intention of teaching the Church, is dogma defoi, and
becomes obligatory under the pain of heresy. Now we
have heard the Popes teaching the Church this dogmatic
truth : the Church is the first among societies, that which
has authority over all others, over the peoples, over the
nations, over the sovereigns, over the governments, over
the State. Therefore, the children of the Church are ob-

1

4»

ROME IN CANADA.

liged to believe, under pain of heresy, that the Church has
a sacred authority over the State.'

Verily, the New School can boast the inestimable trea-
sure of a large number of apt pupils.

Concede to the Church all that is here demanded for
her, and her right to control parliamentary elections
and to dictate the laws, to which every one of Her Ma-
jesty's Canadian subjects must submit, would be unim-
peachable.

These pamphleteers form the advanced guard of the
Roman brigade ; and they are privileged to say in a loud
voice what bishops and archbishops as yet only say in a
whisper. But the attempt to control parliamentary
elections is only the putting in practice of the theory of
the pamphleteers. When we consider that the doctrines
which the above quotation exposes was emitted in reply
to theologians of the old, liberal, Galilean school, we
get some idea of how far we have drifted from the ancient
land-marks since the Syllabus and the Vatican decrees
were promulgated.

r 1

III.

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

It will be convenient, at this point, to trace, in rougb
outline, the ancient land-marks of the Gallican liberties,
which have become obscured and nearly effaced by time.
On the model of the national Church of France, the
Church of Canada, under the French Dominion, was
formed. The resemblance was not, and in the nature of
things could not be, in all respects, complete. But the
general features were in both the same. Ultramontanism
was better held in check, under the French, than it has
been since the conquest. Of what: the Gallican liberties
consisted, in the land of their birth, will first form a sub-
ject of enquiry ; and then will follow the consideration of
the extent to which they were transferred to Canada.
These liberties were not always the same in their scope
and extent ; they varied with time and circumstance,
and sometimes they were theoretical rather than practical.
At one time they assumed the defiant aspect of the Prag-
matic sanction ; at another, they were embodied in a
concordat concluded between the nation and the Pope.
But whatever their form, and whatever deductions may
have been made from the full demands of the Gallican
advocates, there always remained a valuable residuum of
real liberty, on which the national pride of France could
fix with real satisfaction.

The term Gallican Church is too wide an expression
for what is meant to be conveyed. There were other
Gauls besides those of France, whom this Church did
not include : Cologne, Treves, and Mayence, were Aus-
trian Gauls, and others belonged to pays d'oheissanu

m

I

r

44 ROME IN CANADA.

which received without distinction all constitutions and
rescripts from Rome.

Under this submissive name came the Pays Bas,
Loraine, Provence, and Bretagne.

The French Church, by the command or leave of the
king, had the liberty of meeting in national council to
make regulations for its government, and the conduct of
the ecclesiastics. In this respect the French sovereigns
followed in the footsteps of the emperors, by whom gene-
ral councils had been called.

For more than five centuries during which national
councils were held in France, Spain, and Germany, no
general council was held. At length the Popes forbade the
assembling of national councils, unless their leave was
first obtained ; and in France none were held for several
centuries. It would seem that France disdained to ask
leave to exercise her ancient liberties, and shrank from
the responsibility of acting without leave. Butthe law-
fulness of national councils, called by the king, was al-
ways maintained.

France accepted the doctrines ot Rome, as laid down
by the Council of Trent and other general councils. But
there she stopped ; she never accepted the discipline of
the Council of Trent, either for herself or for that New
France which she founded on the banks of the St. Law-
rence. But this fact does not prevent Ultramontane
writers from constantly appealing to the decrees of the
Council of Trent, as if they were, without exception, in
force in Canada. Rome, it is true, objected to councils
which were not called by the Pope ; but France perse-
vered, and refused to admit that the lapse of time be-
tween one national council and another could establish a
prescription in favour of the Pope. Again and again
the armies of France flew across the Alps to the succour
of the Pope; but she refused to accept his bulls and re-

\

LIBERTIES OF THE GALICAN CHURCH.

4S

scripts as a matter of course, oi to surrender the right of
regulating the discipline of the national Church.

Urban II. presided at the National Council of France
held at Claremont in 1097, which refused to interfere
with lay tithes, though the existence of such tithes was
not tolerated in Italy. On the appointment of bishops,
the king had the right of regale and investiture, and each
new bishop was required to take an oath of fidelity. It
was formerly held, even by some Canadian priests, that
these rights descended to the English monarch on the
conquest of Canada ; ana they were exercised for some
time with more or less rigour. The representative of
the sovereign in Canada used to select the Roman
Catholic bishops, not absolutely, but in a way that con-
fined the choice to one of three persons whom he named.
But this check upon the choice of 'vome has been re-
moved ; and a foreign priest, on becoming a bishop in
Canada, is not now required to give the pledge of fidelity
which the oath of former times contained, and with which
France has not yet thought it urudent to dispense. The
bishops, having command o. the consciences of the
subjects of the sovereign, are properly required to swear
that they will bear faithful allegiance to him, and not ex-
ercise their authority to his prejudice. There is the more
need of this in Canada, where foreigners are sometinjes
sent to exercise episcopal functions, including the power
of appointing and removing the inferior clergy at their
pleasure. A wire pulled at Rome sets the whole
machinery in motion ; and the command is obeyed by a
clerical army, which is the depository of the secrets of
the Catholic population, and has in its hands, besides the
power of the confessional, the more terrible powers of
censure and anathema.*

♦ Le predications, les confessions et avertissements, que les ecclesiastiques font
au fait des consciences peuvent beaucoup aider nuire & I'obeyssance que les sujets
dovient k leur roi. Coquille.

46

ROME IN CANADA.

The French bishops had original jurisdiction in all ec-
clesiastical causes, in their own diocese, without the in-
terference of the Pope, to whom such causes could only
come by what the French called devolution, arising out ot
the neglect of those whose business it was to have tried
them. But ecclesiastical causes did not include ques-
tions relating to the possession ol benefices and ecclesias-
tical tithes : these came before the king's judges, and
the ecclesiastical judge was not allowed to hear them.
From the ecclesiastical courts appeals were made to the
courts of Parliament ; a proceeding which was known
as the A ppel cotntne d'Abus, the assumption being that
the ecclesiastical judge had exceeded his powers.

Benedict XII. was the first Pope who seized the elec-
tive benefices ; and succeeding Popes made similar usur-
pations : French archbishops, bishops, abbes, and priors
were appointed at Rome, and selections made by the
accustomed means were declared null. The abolition of
the elective benefices deprived the ancient collators of
their rights. With instinctive greed of gain, the Popes
generally pounced on the richest benefices. The Prag-
matic sanction put an end to the abuse. But the opposi-
tion of Rome, which had won over the Bishop of Bale
by the bribe of a cardinal's hat, forced Francis I. to enter
into a concordat, by which the king obtained, by way of
bargain, the nomination of the bishops.

Under Pope Alexander III., the Council of Latran
laid down the rule that if the person who had the rig
of presentation to a benefice left it vacant for six months,
the right of appointment would devolve on the next
superior; and a succession of such acts of negligence
would finally give the appointment to the Pope. Bene-
fices were declared vacant on charges, not always true,
of irregularity, simony, or heresy ; and the king, to put a
stop to the abuse, called the estates together at Orleans,

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

47

and decreed that alleged devolutions were not to be re-
garded as creating vacancies till the cause of the
vacancy had been adjudicated upon.

The Pragmatic sanction, embodying a decree of the
Council of Bale, had abolished references to Rome in
cases of original jurisdiction ; and when causes were ap-
pealed to Rome, the Pope was to send delegates to the
country where they had been tried. The Courts oi Par-
liament enforced this decree. The Pope once sent dele-
gates to France to judge consistorially a marriage cause,
in which a Grand Seigneur was concerned, no opposition
being made. There is no regular Bishop's Court {Offici-
alite) or other regularly organized ecclesiastical court
in Canada. The Quebec Act gives the sovereign power
to establish ecclesiastical courts, but it was never exer-
cised, and what were called causes majeures are all re-
served for adjudication by the Pope. And it has become
the fashion to refer mere disputes, which could not be
placed in any catalogue of reserved causes, between eccle-
siastics, where the Ultramontane feels assured of suc-
cess in advance.

Some f^f the Popes, notably Alexander III. and Inno-
-^lu ill., not infrequently judged causes without touching
their merits, and sacrificed justice to formalities of proce-
dure. In this way the canon law, which was intended
only to apply to'ecclesiastics, became a second civil law ;
and the judicial practice of the canon law became better
known than that of the Roman civil law. Ecclesiastics
contended that there was little use in studying the civil
law, since there were scarcely any causes that could not be
decided under the canon law; and the Popes, to give an
ascendancy to the canon law, even in the lay courts, pro-
nounced the sentence of excommunication against all by
whom it was contravened. By these and other means,
'they succeeded in enforcing the observance of the canon

48

ROME IN CANADA.

\l'

law. But, in France, the liberties of the Gallican Church
kept this abuse in check. The delays in the court of
Rote, at Rome, were ruinous : Balde says that if a cause
were decided within thirty years, good progress was made.

Though the Popes, after they had laid claim to almost
absolute power, reserved many cases to themselves, and
interdicted the Diocesans from granting dispensations, the
French Church, retaining its ancient liberties, was not
willing to recognize all these reservations ; and if she
sometimes allowed them, she did not hold herself obliged
to do so for all time.

The necessity for each nation to make rules of ecclesias-
tical discipline for itself was derived by Gallican writers
from the circumstance that what would be beneficial to
one might be prejudicial to another. The changes in the
order and discipline of the Church had been numerous.
The mode of appointing Popes and bishops had not
always been the same ; the priests had not always been
required to be celibates ; the dispensation and distribu-
tion of temporalities had varied ; the establishment and
regulation of monasteries had been subject to no uniform
rules; the age at which persons had been admitted to
holy orders had been different at different times ; a se-
cular had been changed into a sacred order; the mode of
conducting the service of the Church had not been immu-
table ; the constitution ol the chapter had not been uniform ;
the mode in which fetes had been commenced and the days
on which meat might not be eaten had differed, at dif-
ferent times ; neither the amount of tithes nor the mode
of collecting them had been invariable ; presentations
and collations to benefices had not always been made in
the same way.*

The French Church acknowledged the Pope to be the
true successor of St. Peter ; but it recognized in him no

* Coquille.

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

49

right to resort to the use of absolute power. The only
exception to this rule was found in the pays' d obeissance.
The Popes claimed the right to exempt monks from the
control of the Diocesans and to make them directly subject
to Rome ; but the National Council of Paris decreed that
no one could be regarded as clerk or priest v»^ho was not
subject to the correction of some bishop. The monks, it
was held, could not declare themselves subject to the
Pope without contravening the ancient discipline of the
Church ; and the Pope could not, at the distance he re-
sided from France, watch over the monasteries and col-
leges of that country. One of the motives for the multi-
plication of dioceses, was that the bishops might better
understand cases requiring adjudication than a judge re-
siding at Rome. Reservations ot crime and cases of con-
science, Gallican writers aver, were unknown in ancient
times, and were first made about the time of Gregory
Vll. By the middle of the nineteenth century no cause
was consistorily judged in France without having first
undergone the preliminary stages; though the Popes did
sometimes, not without protest, continue to interfere in
cases other than of appeal and devolution.

Special means were taken to protect the rights of the
lay patron, which were originally due to his or his prede-
cessors having founded a church and endowed it : as a
consequence of such foundation, he and his successors re-
tained the right of presentation. No orovisions of the
Pope prejudicial to the patron's rights were admitted.
When a legate went to France, it was customary for the
Parliament so to restrict his powers, that he could not ex-
ercise his functions prejudicially to the lay patrons.

The French Church could, without having recourse to
Rome, create new bishoprics — though in more recent
times the Pope exercised the power — unite two old ones ;
secularize a monastic church ; dispense with such prohi-

30

ROME IN CANADA.

i:

bited degrees in marriage as were the creation of human
law, in other words, the canon law ; — when the impedi-
ment arose irom the civil law no ecclesiastic had the right
to assume to remove it ; — imite old and erect new parish
churches and other benefices ; transfer a bishop from one
See to another ; fix the age at which the monastic orders
might be entered and holy orders conferred ; dispense
with the rule which prohibited bastards from holding
benefices, though the Pope had reserved this power from
about the eleventh century ; abolish the indults of cardi-
nals ; provide for the government of hospitals ; regulate
and confirm the election of bishops, and give coadjutors
to such of them as, from age or infirmity, required assis-
tance ; provide for the administration of a vacant cathe-
dral church ; define the rank and power of Roman car-
dinals in France, and fix the. age of marriage. The
necessity of archbishops going to .Rome to receive the
pallium was contested ; the metropolitan, as patriarch,
it was contended, could confer it ; but the general prac-
tice seems to have been in contradiction of this conten-
tion.*

Numerous were the decretals and bulls which were not

observed in France, and which were not allowed to be
published there. The Ultramontanes contended that
French Catholics were not the less bound by these de-
cretals and bulls, as their publication at Rome, the
•capital of the Catholic world, made them obligatory on
the faithful everywhere. When it was customary to pub-
lish at Rome, every year, the bull ut coena Domini, the
Roman Court assumed that this publication was binding
on the faithful in France, as well as in other countries.

By this bull, the Pope claimed exclusive power of ab-
solution in certain cases ; but GaLican writers held that no

* Coquille. Traite des Liberies de I'Eglise de France et de droits et autorite que

la courronne de France a ^s affaires de I'Eglise dudit R
' union avec ladite Eglise.

ume pour bonne et sainte

>^^?-'*— W^HWgt^WM!

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLIC AN CHURCH. 51

one could be interdicted the communion unless|he had vol-
untarily confessed his crime, or been condemned by name,
in some Court, ecclesiastical or lay. Anathematization,
or damnation to eternal death, was, in the French scheme
of discipline, reserved exclusively for those who remained
incorrigible, after repeated opportunities to give satisfac-
tion had been rejected. In early times there were no
reserved cases ; a simple priest could absolve for crimes
of every degree. f

The French Government disregarded the publication
of this bull at Rome, and refused to allow it to be pub-
lished in France : it denied to the Pope the possession of
that absolute power v/hich the pretence of binding people
under other governments assumed. The Gallicans held
that, if a rescript from Rome had reference to faith solely,
the bishops could judge of the matter as well as the Pope,
and that they could revise his judgments ; if the rescript
had reference to discipline only, each Church had the
right to regulate its own, and the authority of the Pope
was powerless to change it. When a question of dogma
arose, and the Church met in council to decide it, the
delegites were bound to express, not their own individual
opinion, but the opinion of the Church7.they represented.
Rules for the discipline of the Church, it was held, are
made for the benefit of the people, and neither Popes nor
Councils could be in possession of the knowledge neces-
sary to form an opinion as to what rules would be best
for any particular country, and no general rule could
possibly be suitable to the people of every country.

These maxims had been held by the French Church

t Coquille has preserved the formula used : Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, qui est lo
Souverain Pontife, te absolve, et moi de I'autorite qu'il mii octioit'e je t'absous. If,
after absolution had been pronounced, in the supposed article of death, a recovery took
place, Boniface VIII. held that the person so absolved again fell under censure, as if by
way of penalty for disappointing the expectation of his death. But, at an earlier date,
there were great doctors who opposed this doctrine,

4

5*

ROME IN CANADA.

from time immemorial. The proces-verhal of an assembly
of French clergy contains these principles : ist — That the
bishops have the right, by divme institution, to judge in
matters of doctrine ; 2nd — That the constitutions of the
Popes are binding on the whole Church when they have
been accepted by the pastors as a body ; 3rd — That this
acceptation, when made by the bishops, should be in the
exercise of their own judgment.

While the National Church claimed this power of ac-
cepting or rejecting, the French king constantly exercised
the same power, not as co-ordinate but absolute. No con-
stitution of the Pope could be received in France till the
king had, by letters patent, ordered it to be put into exe-
cution ; and such order was not given till it was ascertained
that it contained nothing contrary to the rights of the
crown and the liberties of the National Church. For the
king was the head of the French Church, as the Pope
claimed to be of the Church universal ; and as they both
claimed to rule by divine right, the national as well as the
universal Church was a theocracy. When the Papal
nuncio presented a bull to the king, the king caused a
meeting of the bishops to be called, to deliberate upon its
acceptance. If the bull was accepted by the bishops, and
their judgment was confirmed by the court, the king
caused letters patent to be addressed to all the parlia-
ments in the kingdom, ordering them to register the bull,
but not till after they had examined whether it contained
anything contrary to the rights of the crown or the liber-
ties of the Church. Legates of the Popes were only
received after their powers had been examined.

Nor did France accept without question or modification
the decrees of General Councils. The Councils of Constance
and Bale were not received in France without modifica-
tions, and the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent
were not received at all. . The Council of Bourges, at

I

i

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

55

\

which the Pragmatic Sanction was framed, regarded the
Council of Bale as oecumenical, but it received its decrees
only with such modifications as made them contormable
to the manners and usages of the French. The Council
of Trent was received in Holland, when the country was
under the dominion of Spain, but not without modifica-
tions, which had for their object the protection of the rights
of the sovereign and his subjects.

In matters of faith, the definitions of Councils were
binding on all Catholics : their decisions had force in the
for inUrieur,* but no Taw of the Church could go into
effect without the consent of the sovereign. In matters
of discipline the people of any country could abolish an
ecclesiastical rule by non-observance and the introduction
of another of a different character. Even in spiritual
matters, no innovation was possible without the consent
of the sovereign, as the head of the National Church. All
the sovereigns of Europe have, at one time or another,
exercised the right of examining ecclesiastical rules, with
a view to their adoption or rejection; and this practice is
one from which France never departed. An arret of the
Parliament of Languedoc, in the fifteenth century, ordered
Bernard, Archbishop of Toulouse, to revoke or cause to
be revoked the monitoire obtained from Rome on the sub-
ject of the property of the defunct archbishop, because
it was necessary to obtain the permission of Parliament
to give it effect. Indeed, the prohibitions of the kings of
France and their officers to receive bulls or briefs from
Rome without express permission of the sovereign,
verified by the Parliaments, are counted by thousands.

And other countries besides France acted with the same
precaution. The Emperor Rodolph II. prohibited the

♦ II y a deux sortes de/or interieur, le for de la conscience, et le tor dc la penitence
ou de la confession sacramental. — Trevoux. The word for, from forum, signifies «,
pnblic place in which justice ia administered.

I .(

S4

ROME IN CANADA

reception, publication, or execution of any bulls without
his sanction. In Spain, Poland, and Naples, letters re-
ceived from Rome were at once taken to the Council of
the sovereign for examination. Philip II. of Spain made
it a rule that the publication of a bull at Rome should
count for nothing unless it was accompanied with the
exequatur Regiutn ; and though this rule was not always
rigorously enforced, Spain did frequently place itself in
opposition to the pretensions of the Court of Rome.
Naples acted on the same principle. In Austrian Flan-
ders, all rescripts from Rome had to be presented to the
'Council and examined before they were allowed to go
into execution. Even in some of the States of Italy, in-
cluding Venice, the same precaution was taken. The
King of Sardinia, in the Victorian Code, forbade, under
severe penalties, the execution of any bulls, briefs, letters,
or mandates, without the express permission of the
Senate, whether they came from Rome, or any other
foreign ecclesiastical court, or any court out of the juris-
diction of the Senate of Savoy. The same usage prevailed
in Sicily. The rule may be said to have been general in
all the Catholic States of Europe ; but this right of
sovereigntj' was one which it was not always possible to
maintain, in active force, against the hostile powers with
which the Court of Rome was armed.

Hence arose the custom of the Church having recourse
to the temporal prince for protection, which the prince
refused or granted at will, or as m.ight seem prudent. The
emperors came in time to regulate by law the manner in
which the royal arm should assist the Church, by ordering
the judges to give effect to the sentences of bishops, with-
out which their judgments would have been inoperative.
At length it came to pass that all Catholic States lent or
refused to the Church the secular arm according to
-circumstances.

i

LIBERTIES OF THE QALLICAN CHURCH.

55

Various means were taken in different States for the
rejection ol the bulls ot the Popes. In France, there was
the Appel comme d'abus, before the king's judges or to a
General Council. Spain simply retained the bulls to pre-
vent their being executed ; other countries refused to allow
them to take effect till they had been scrutinized by the
Secretary of State, or authorized by the sovereign, or
the judiciary ; among them Germany, Flanders, Portugal,
Naples, Milan, and Florence.

The Court of Rome pretended that the ordinances of
the civil governments for the execution of the bulls of the
Popes were useless formalities, injurious to the Holy See,
since they made kings judges in matters of faith, and su-
perior to the Pope in questions of doctrine ; that the
usage was new and unknown to antiquity. But the scru-
tiny to which the bulls were subjected by the civil power
was regarded as necessary, not for the purpose of passing
judgment on the dogma, but for the purpose of ascertain-
ing whether, under the pretext of dogma, they contained
anything that menaced the public peace, v/hich every sov-
ereign is bound to preserve. It is for the civil power to
ascertain whether a dogmatic bull contains anything which
derogates from the rights of the State, anything which is
contrary to local liberties and settled customs. The sov-
ereigns, it was contended, did not decide on matters of
faith ; they introduced no novelties when they refused to
authorize the execution of new decisions of the Court ot
Rome ; they simply maintained the ancient laws of the
Church, of which they were the protectors ; they refused
the aid of the royal arm to carry out decrees, the execution
of which would, in their opinion, have been an abuse of
power.

From the time of Clovis, the French took precautions
to permit the publication of such rules only as were not
contrary to the rights of the king, ol the Church, and the

56

ROME IN CANADA.

people. Ecclesiastical rules on the subject of discipline
were made to conform to the local laws ; whence result-
ed a right which each nation called its liberties. These
regulations were made in pursuance of the principle that
€ach nation has an inherent right to govern itself, and
that no foreign power has a right to interfere in its inter-
nal affairs. Pope Alexander III. admitted that, on the
question of the validity or the invalidity of a marriage,
the rules of the Church of Rome ought to give place to
the customs of the Church of France.

From the countries in which these customs existed
must be distingued the pays d'obeissance, whose feebleness
subjecting them to the Court of Rome caused them to re-
ceive without distinction all bulls and rescripts. The
pretensions of the Court of Rome once admitted, and
acquiesced in for a long period of time, were often regard-
ed as conferring the right of prescription ; though it was
a maxim of the Gallican Church that no length of time
could constitute a prescription m opposition to the public
good.

The relations between the Gallican Church and the
Court of Rome were long regulated by the Concordat con-
cluded on the i6th August, 1516, between Fran9ois I.
and Leon X. Previous to this the Pragmatic Sanction
had, for more than three quarters of a century, caused
great opposition between the Courts of France and Rome.

The Concordat took from the chapters of the French
Churches the election of bishops ; instead of which the
king was to name to the Pope a doctor of theology or of
law, not less than twenty-seven years of age, six months
after the vacation of the See, in order that the Pope might
confer the benefice ; if this election had fallen on an in-
capable person, the king was to be notified to name
another, and if he failed to do so within three months, the
Pope might make the appointment himself. Where the

\

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

57

selection was made in curia, the Pope was authorized to
appoint the bishop without waiting for the nomination of
the king, and the same rule was applied to abbes and
conventual elective priories. The second article abol-
ished the graces expectatives, by means of which the
Popes had virtually disposed ot Church patronage in
France through recommendations to the bishops and chap-
ters, even before the benefices were vacant. The poor
beneficiary was sometimes killed in order to vacate his
place.*

At the time when the Popes seized the collation to ben-
efices, by what was called prevention, the exercise ot this
power, which was always odious in France, was subjected
to many modifications and restrictions, and the rights of
lay patrons were in all cases guarded against the encroach-
ment. There were canonists who defended the usurpa-
tion, by saying that the Pope was the source of all power,
and could at will resume a jurisdiction which he had re-
mitted to the ordinaries ; but the doctrine was never fully
accepted in France. The term prevention signified
priority in the act of appointment, and sometimes the
Pope and the Ordinary ran a race against time and against
one another. If the provisions of the Pope and of the
Ordinary bore the same date, it was customary, in France,
to give the preference to those of the Ordinary ; the can-
onists, on the contrary, gave it to those of the Pope.f

The Concordat dealt a heavy blow at the liberties of the
Galilean Church. By it causes majetirs were reserved for
adjudication at Rome; the Pragmatic Sanction was in its
main features abolished, and the Councils of Constance
and Bale condemned. The nomination of bishops reserved
to the king lost much of its apparent value, from the fact
that the Pope had the power of rejecting the selection

* Diet, Univ. Art. Libert^i des Egliae Catholigquei.
f Du Cange.

58

ROME IN CANADA.

made on the pretence of its unsuitableness ; and where
the right of election had previously existed, the king did
not even obtain the privilege of qualified nomination.

The Concordat did not embrace Provence and Bretagne,
pays (i'obiiissance.

Some of the most objectionable articles were modified,
restricted, or abrogated by usage. Leon X. and his suc-
cessors suppressed the privileges of election which certain
Churches possessed. Leon accorded to Fran(;ois L an
indult for the nomination of bishops in Bretagne and Pro-
vence, which was believed to be in execution of a verbal
agreement made and secret articles framed when the Con-
cordat was signed. It was in virtue of similar bulls that
the king nominated to bishoprics in conquered countries.
From the time of Fran(;ois L the French kings nominat-
ed the bishops and archbishops in every part of the
country, and the Popes conferred the benefices on the
persons so selected.

The unpopularity of the Concordat aroused opposi-
tion on all sides. The Parliament of Paris only consent-
ed to register it when the menace of dissolution, had for
two years been hanging over it ; declaring that it did so
because expressly commanded by the king, and not be-
cause its own judgment approved. The cognizance of
questions relating to the title of benefices, which the
Parliament had up to that time possessed, was taken from
it and transferred to the Grand Council. The Univer-
sity of Paris joined in the opposition, by remonstrance,
protest, and appeals to a future Council. On several oc-
casions the clergy demanded the restoration of elections,
notably at the Council of Rouen. Such of the articles of
the Pragmatic Sanction as were not specially abolish' ^
by the Concordat remamed in force.

Francois 1. desired to obtain the nomination of bishop
for the purpose of being able to recompense the devotion.

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

59

or services of members of the noblesse ; and it is a
curious fact that while twenty-iour Popes, from Gregory
VII., had employed both temporal and spiritual arms
against the emperors, and taken from them the appoint-
ment of bishops and abbots, for the purpose of giving the
election to the chapters in Germany, seven Popes used
their utmost endeavours to take from the chapters of
France the right of election which certain Churches had
possessed for centuries, lor the purpose of transferring the
right of nomination to the king.

It is an error very widely disseminated which assumes
that the annates, or the first year's income, which became
payable to the Pope in respect of all sorts of benefices,
had their foundation in the Concordat. They seem to
rest on no other authority than a bull of Pope Leon X.,
which, in several editions, has been added to the text of
the Concordat, as have several other pieces which form
no part of it. The bull is of a date posterior to the Con-
cordat ; it was not registered by the Parliament of Paris ;
it was not received in France in the only way which
could give it legal effect ; it was not approved of by the
fifth Council of Latran, along with the text of the Con-
cordat ; it was, in fact, not then in existence.

That annates were collected under a bull which never
obtained legal acceptance in France, is a proof of how
inadequate the precautions taken by the French Govern-
ment to guard the rights of the crown against the usur-
pation of Rome sometimes proved to be. This bull
required every one who applied to the Court of Rome to
have a benefice conferred upon him to accompany
application with a statement of its annual value. It was
worth while to collect the figures with care, for the
amount sent annually from France to Rome in the shape
of annates, was nearly six hundred thousand livres. The
Popes refused to give a year's credit for the annates to

1.

•60

ROME IN CANADA.

the newly appointed bishops: letters of institution and
provision were not issued till the money was paid. Some
Popes went so far as to visit with the penalty of excom-
munication non-payment if continued beyond a given
time.

The Gallican Church, as a national establishment,
contauied one very grave defect when it found itself con-
strained, contrary to law, to send these immense sums to
Rome for a purpose which a National Church ought to
have been able to fulfil. This recourse to Rome would
have been unnecessary if the resolutions of the French
Church passed at an Assembly called by Charles VI. at
Paris had been adhered to. According to this plan, the
archbishops were to confirm the election of the bishops
within their dioceses, and the election of the Metropolitan
by the oldest of the suffragans, or by the Provmcial Coun-
cil ; and for the collation and institution to other benefices
recourse was to be had to the bishop of the place.

Henry II. had forbidden his subjects to send money to
Rome, whether for dispensations, provisions of benefices,
or for any other purpose whatever. The French kings,
in this particular, gave a license to the Popes of Avignon
which they would not, in the first instance, have given
to those of Rome. The annates formed one of the chief
means of raising the Popes from poverty to riches.
Those who objected to their payment stigmatized them
as simoniacal. The French, at the Council of Constance,
expressed a desire for their abolition, and the Council of
Bale, declaring them simoniacal, did formally abolish
them ; the Assembly at Bourges modified this decree, by
permitting the then existing Pope to draw one-fifth of
the annates ; but it was by favour that they accorded so
much to this Pope personally, with the distinct under-
standing that it was not to go to his successors.

The liberties of the Gallican Church, so called from the

t

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLIC AN CHURCH.

6z

successful opposition to the efforts which the Court ot
Rome had repeatedly made to reduce the French people to
servitude, were guarded by a triple rampart : the inter-
position of the authority of the sovereign to prevent obe-
dience where obedience was not due; the accepted prin-
ciple that the Pope is bound by the canons, and is inca-
pable of derogating from such of them as have been ac-
cepted in France ; the principle that a General Council
possesses authority superior to the Pope. These liber-
ties were regarded as the precious remains of the first
centuries, which France believed she had preserved moi<2
strictly than any other State. If Bossuet could rise
from the dead and make his appearance in Canada, with
all the sins of Gallicanism on his head, the New School
would brand him with anathema, and would not even
permit his title to rank among the faithful.

The Galileans recognized the Pope as the chief ot
bishops, and allowed that he possessed the authority
which the ancient Councils had attributed to him ; but
they did not grant him the possession of that power
which infallibility implies. For the limits which they
placed to his authority, they pleaded the warrant of an-
tiquity. The French made it a subject of pride that they
had preserved, with greater integrity than any other
nation, the liberties ot the National Chmrch without
breaking the unity of the Catholic faith. The perse-
verance of the Church of Rome in sustaining 'ts preten-
sions was nevertheless rewcirded by the growth of some
usages unknown in earlier times ; but on every important
occasion the Parliaments brought against the innova-
tions a strenuous opposition. The French kings, for
special reasons, sometimes accorded to the Popes privi-
leges which could not have been cbimed of right ; and
succeeding Popes, regarding these privileges as the ap-

62

ROME IN CANADA.

panage of the See of Rome, converted them into a common
right and gave them the name of privileges.

The body of ancient canons which the French took
for their guide was the Code approved by the Council of
Chalcedonia, known under the title of Ancien Code des
Canons, in which they professed to find the ancient com-
mon-law of the Church ; while they regarded the new
canon law as bmding only on the countries into which
it had been introduced. To the pretension of Boniface
VIII. that all the faithful are bound to believe, as neces-
sary to salvation, that temporal governments are subject
to the Pope, and that it is in his power to make and un-
make kings, they contented themselves by replying that
it was new, and that the ancient canons gave the Pope
no such right. To the assumption of the Popes, that
their constitutions had the force of law throughout the
Church universal, the Gallicans, in reply, asked to be
shown the titles by which Rome assumed to take away
the liberties of a nation ot freemen. |

What may be called the great charter of Gallicanism
is to be found in the declaration of the French clergy ot
the 1682; but it is sheer misrepresentation to say that
this declaration is the origin of Gallicanism. The declar-
ation was drawn up by Bossuet, and is comprised in
four articles. Before examining these articles, it will be
necessary to a full understanding of the subject to glance
at the causes which led to the assembly of the clergy,
and the framing of the celebrated declaration.

The droit de regale, which had existed from an early
period in France, consisted of the enjoyment by the king
of the revenue of certain bishoprics, and the nomination
to the benefices from the time they became vacant to the
appointment of new bishops. The Parliament of Paris,
in 1608, declared all churches subject to the droit de

t Diet. Univer. Liberies des Eg'ises Catholiques.

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLIlAN CHURCH.

63

regale which had not a special title of exemption ; and
this judgment was sanctioned, in 1673, by Louis XIV.
In this enterprise, the king encountered the opposition
of two bishops, notably the Bishop of Pamiers. This
prelate refused to recognize the canonry whom the king
had nominated, en regale. The Metropolitan put them in
possession, and the Parliament assured them the enjoy-
ment of the revenue. Innocent XI. came to the assistance
of the bishop, and in several briefs attacked the declara-
tion of the king as contrary to all laws, human and divine.
The bishop then excommunicated the regalists and the
officers who had seized the revenue.

In the midst of this agitation, the bishop, M. Caulet,
died, and the Parliament of Toulouse ordered the entire
chapter to meet within three days, to appoint Vicars-
General. One of the Vicars-General, who had been named
by t'le ancient canons, Auba^'ede, ordered the regalists
oat of the Church, and on their refusal to comply, declared
them excommunicated and delivered over to Satan. This
priest was sent into exile ; but his colleague revoked the
sentence of the Metropolitan, excommunicated the pro-
moter and the Grand-VicarofM.deToulouse,by whom the
vicars had been appointed, in pursuance of the arret of
Parliament. The king selected M. de Barlemont for the
bishopric of Pamiers ; but the Pope, instead of granting
him the necessary bulls, issued an acrimonious brief, in
which he declared valueless all the confessions received
and all the marriages contracted by permission of the
Grand-Vicars named by the Metropolitan. The Parlia-
ment of Paris pronounced the suppression of this brief.
The Pope, in turn, ordered the General of the Jesuits to
address copies of this brief to the Provincials of the
Society for circulation among the members of their order.
The Advocate-General pronounced this manner of pub-
lishing briefs to be new, dangerous, and contrary to the

i'

64

ROME IN CANADA.

laws of the State. The Parliament issued an arret
forbidding not only the Jesuits, but all other religious
orders, to publish or circulate any briefs or bulls which
had not been admitted to registration.

On the death of the abbess of the monastery of Charonne,
an ill-governed institution, situated in the Faubourg St.
Antoine, the Archbishop of Paris made a temporary
appointm^"*^ to the office. A year later, an unknown hand
carried to the abbe a brief from the Pope, which moved
the religieuses to elect a superior and assistants without
making an appeal to the Archbishop of Paris, their
immediate superior. Then came another brief praising
this act of obedience. The Parliament declared these
briefs an abuse of power, and ordered the seizure of the
goods of the monastery, on the complaint of creditors that
they were being clandestinely sold. The contest waxed
hotter and hotter ; a new brief proscribed the arret of
Parliament. The Ultramonlanes ranked the affair of
Charonne among the causes majeiirs ; they claimed for the
Pope the right to interpret the Concordat according to
his will and pleasure, and they treated as heretics all who
affirmed that the bishops held their authority immediately
from Jesus Christ.

The Assembly of the clergy of 1665 engaged Doctor
Gerbais to compose a treaty des causes majeurs which,
according to the Roman doctrine, could only be decided
by the Pope. Doctor Gerbais, on the contrary, under-
took to prove that the bishops had the right to decide in
matters of faith and discipline, and to oppose the authority
whicli they received immediately from Jesus Christ to
the novelties which might be obtruded into their dioceses
and their provinces ; that the bishops ought to be
judged, in the first instance, by their co Veres in the pro-
vince. Gerbais' book was condemned oy the Pope, as
containing schismatical doctrine, bemg open to the

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLIC ^N CHURCH.

65.

suspicion of heresy, and injurious to the Holy See ; and
every one was forbidden to read it on pain of excom-
munication.

The causes of difference between France and the Court
of Rome were constantly increasing. Father Buhy, a
distinguished priest of the order of Carmelites, in a thesis
read at the Sorbonne, had maintained the doctrine that
there are la\i,:s to which the Pope is amenable ; that he
cannot, in all cases, dispense with the canons ; that he
can neither depose kings nor impose tribute on the clergy
of their kingdoms ; that the bishops hold their jurisdiction
from Jesus Christ; that the Faculty of Theology ot Paris
neither regards the Pope as infallible, nor as above the
Councils of the Church ; that the droit de regale is neither
a myth nor an usurpation.

The Pope interdicted the book ; and on the very next
day the Parliament of Paris forbade the execution of the
order of interdiction. Buhy, regarding the interdict as
suspended, went to preach at Lyons, and when the nev/s
reached Rome, he was declared incapable of performing
any ecclesiastical function or having any voice in his
order. The Procureur-General represented to Parliament
that Buhy had been condemned contrary to law ; that
the form of the condemnation was not less irregular than
unjust, and that, as a French subject, he could only be
judged in the first instance by a French Court ; that the
case was one in which the Faculty of Theology of Paris
had original jurisdiction. Buhy was ordered to continue
his functions of lecturer in his convent, and the Carmelites
and other religious orders whose superiors lived out of
the kingdom of France were forbidden to execute any
decree or letters patent of their orders which did not
relate to the ordinary discipline of their houses, without
having first obtained letters patent of the king, duly
registered.

•«6

ROME IN CANADA.

i:

! I

The Assembly of the French clergy of 1680, when about
to separate, learned that three briefs of the Pope on the
subject of the regale, in which the king was menaced, and
the bishops reproached, were being circulated in the
kingdom. They therefore assembled next year to the
number of forty, when they expressed the opinion that
* to remain silent under the briefs of Innocent XI. would
be to consent to the annihilation of the jurisdiction of the
ordinaries, and to renounce the inviolable maxims of the
discipline of the Gallican Church.' They remonstrated
with the Pope, and drew up a solemn, but respectful
protestation, and they unanimously resolved to ask the
consent of the king to hold the General Assembly, which
took place in 1682, which afterwards became famous.

At that Assembly, M. Coquelin raised the question of
the extent and the limits of the authority of the Sovereign
Pontiff, and there was a strong feeling in favour of bring-
ing it under discussion ; but Bossuet, who was engaged
in controversy with the Calvinists, felt that this chord
should not be too rudely touched, and his opinion changed
the direction of the discussion. M. Coquelin recalled the
fact that, eighteen years before, the Faculty of The-
ology of Paris had protested against the six propositions
which attempts were then being made to propagate :
ist. — * That the Pope has authority, direct or indirect,
over the authority of kings ; that in certain cases the
Pope can depose kings ; that he can release subjects from
their oath of fidelity; that the Pope is not under subjec
tion to the rules of the Church, and can depose bishops,
contrary to the dispositions of the canons ; that the Pope
recognizes no superior power, not even that of Gen-
eral Councils ; that his decisions are infallible, independent
of the Church, and according to some, this infallibility
• extends to questions "Df fact.'

The school of theologians who preached these doc-

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

67

trines. the New School of that day, first stated as private
opinions maxims which they afterwards aimed to erect
into dogmas. A committee appointed to examine the six
articles combatted by the Sorbonne, evolved from them
the famous declaration in four articles which, as already
observed, became the great charter of Gallicanism.*

* I subjoin ft translation of these articles : ist — ' That St. Peter and his successors,
vicars of yesus Christ and the Church, as a whole, have received from God power
only over spiritual things, which concern salvation, and not over things temporal and
civil ; Jesus Christ himself said that hi;; kingdom was not of this world, and in
another place " render unto Caesar the things that are Cxsar's, and unto God the
things that are God's." That it is necessary to observe the precept of the apostle
Saint Paul :" let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." ' Consequently we
declare that kings are not subject to any ecclesiastical power by the order of God ;
that they cannot be deposed directly or indirectly by the authority of the keys of the
Church ; that their subjects cannot be exempted from the submission and the
obedience which they owe, or released from their oath of fidelity ; that this doctrine,
necessary to the public oeace, and equally advantageous to the Church as to the
State, ought to be held as conformable to holy Scripture, the tradition of the fathers
of the Church, and examples of the saints.

end — ' That the plenitude of the power if the Holy Apostolic See, and the successors
of Saint Peter, vicars of Jesus Christ, have over things spiritual, is such nevertheless,
that the decrees of the Holy Qicumenic Council of Constance, contained in the ses-
sions four and five, approved by the Holy Apostolic See, and confirmed by the practice
of the whole Church and the Koman Pontiffs, and religiously observed at all times by
the Galilean Church, remain in their full force and virtue, and that the ChiTch of
France does not approve the opinion of those who attacked these decrees, or enfeebled
them by denying that their authority is well established,that they have been approved,
or that they had reference only to times of schism.

3rd — 'That the use of the apostolic power should be regulated by the canons made
by the spirit of God, and consecrated by the ^.'eneral respect of mankind ; that the
rules, practices, and constitutions received in the kingdom, and in the Gallican
Church, ought to have full force ; and that the I'mits placed by our fathers oufjht not
to be overstepped; finally, it appertains to the greatness of the Apostolic Sec that the
laws and customs affirmed by the consent of this venerable See, and that of the
Churches, should subsist without alteration.

4th — ' That the Sovereign Pontiff has the principal part in the decision of questions
of faith, and that all the decrees clothed with his authority address themselves, of
right, to all the Churches and to each Church in particular ; however, his judgment is
not irreformible if the consent of the Church has not been given. These are the
maxims which we received from our fathers, and which we have formulated for the
purpose of sending to all the Gallican Churches and to the bishops who govern thi;m,
with tbe assistance of the Holy Spirit, in order that we may all teach the same thing,
cherish the same sentiments, and hold the same doctrine.'

68

ROME IN CANADA.

The king, as head of the French Church, claimed a
right not less absolute than that to which any Pope ever
pretended", in respect to the teaching of the four articles.
He ordered them to be registered by all the Parliaments
and tribunals, by the Universities and Faculties of The-
ology and of canon law. Every one was forbidden to
teach anything contrary to the doctrine contained in the
declaration ; the bishops were ordered to cause it to be
taught throughout their dioceses ; every one appointed
to a prolessorship of theology was required to subscribe
to the declaration and to promise to teach the articles ;
and no one could receive the degree of doctor till he had,
in a thesis, sustained the great charter of Gallicanism.
The declaration was, in some sort, the work of the
Sorbonne, since it contained the articles presented to the
king in 1663, and the greater part of the bishops had
been trained in Gallican principles in that famous
school.

The stubborn temper of Innocent XI. had been
irritated by the rejection of his briefs, and he was
strengthened in his resolution to oppose the execution of
the four articles by the intrigues of Austria and Spain,
whose representatives assured him that if he yielded to
Louis XIV. the right of y<'^a/tf, these countries could claim
the same privilege. The French bishops excused them-
selves to the Pope for having consented to the extension
of the ri'gale ; and the latter, in an acrimonious reply,
loaded them with every species of reproach, and said he
had read with a shudder of horror that part of their letter
in which they spoke of their deference to the king. He
assumed to annul everything that had been done in the
French assemblies regarding theregale. The bishops, in
theirturn, protested against the briefsof the Pope, as being
contrary tothe rights, usages, and liberties of the Galli-
can Church. Their action being made known to the

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

69

nuncio, the Pope ceased to send briefs, and took refuge in
the policy of silence and delay.

To the members of the clergy who had formed part of
the Assembly of 1682, and whom the king had since named
to bishoprics, the Pope refused the customary bulls.
The idea of creating a Patriarchate in France, to which
expression had been given under Richelieu and Mazarin,
was renewed, and there was a disposition to demand
the re-establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But
Louis XIV., who had formed the project of extirpating
Calvinism, discouraged these enterprises.

The wrath of the Pope was too fierce to be appeased
by tlie fit of insane devotion which took the shape of the
revocation of the Edict ot Nantes. Two years after that
event, the franchises of the French ambassadors at Rome
were withdrawn. The Parliament pronounced against
this bull by the appel comme d'abtis. But the Jesuits, who
had possession of the king's conscience, were not idle;
and but for their efforts it is probable that the F'rench
Church would have obtained, from that time, absolute in-
dependence of Rome in matters of discipline. The impres-
sion which the Jesuits had made on his mind is fairly
represented by the remark he is said to have made to the
Procureur-General, Harlay, that it was impossible to
have too great a regard lor the Pope ; to which Harlay
is said to have replied : Oui, sire, il faut lui baiser les
pieds et lui lier les mains (yes, sire, it is necessary to kiss
his feet and tie his hands).

Innocent XL, had nothing to do but to wait. The
number of French bishops to whom was denied the power
necessary for the discharge of their functions was con
stantly increasing. Cazzoni and other courtisans, whose
eartheCourts of Austria and Spain had obtained, continue
ed to confirm the Pope in his determination to refuse the
bulls of provision and installation to the new bishops-

70

ROME IN CANADA.

.1 f

t t

Innocent XI. died in 1689, and bequeathed the quarrel
to his successor, Alexander VIII., to secure whose elec-
tion France is said to have expended three millions of
livres ; but, whether this be true or not, the new Pope
adopted the maxims of his predecessor. He demanded
that the new bishops who had signed the Declaration
should retract. The king replied that the execution ot
one of the principal articles of the Concordat could not be
made to depend on this condition ; the ancient
formula of faith, he said, was sufficient ; the Assembly of
1682 had not decreed a new article of faith, but made an
exposition of the doctrines of the French clergy, which
the demand for bulls could not be allowed to destroy ;
those questions were at least problematical, and
there could be no reason tor doubting the orthodoxy of
the new bishops, as the Councils of Constance and Bale
had made the same decrees, and that of Trent had not
made any contrary declaration ; numbers of French
bishops who had sustained similar propositions had ob-
tained their bulls ; the desire of the Popes to make new
articles of faith was of dangerous consequence ; finally, if
the refusal of the bulls were persisted in, France would
re-establish the condition of things which eJiisted prior to
the Concordat and supply herself with pastors.

The Pope lowered his demand so far as to express his
readiness to accept from the bishops a letter stating that
they had no intention to make any definition contrary to
the faith, or to do anything that would be displeasing to
the Holy See ; and that the king ought to forego the execu-
tion of his edict on the subject of the four articles.

The king wished to come to an accommodation with
the Pope, without a retraction on the part of the bishops ;
and while the form of letter to be written was under con-
sideration, the Pope fulminated a bull concerning the
four articles more heavily weighted with reproaches than

LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

71

that of his predecessor on the subject of the regale. Of
this bull, which the Pope hesitated to publish, the car-
dinals sent some copies to France.

A second Pope had died since the rupture with France
had taken place, and Innocent XII. appeared upon the
scene. The number of French bishops awaiting bulls
now reached thirty-five. The Papal nuncio at Paris
frightened Louis XIV. into the belief that he was sustain-
ing an impudent and impious doctrine of the Richerists,
and was thereby imperilling his eternal salvation.

Louis now yielded ; and Bossuet wrote the letter de-
manded from the bishops, which, though not intended
for a recantation, might easily be taken for such, with the
addition of voluntary self-abasement, which could scarce-
ly have been necessary. * Prostrated,' the letter read,.
' at the feet of your beatitude, we declare ourselves pene-
trated with grief above all expression for things done in
our assemblies which have highly displeased your holi-
ness and your predecessors ; and everything which has
been regarded as decreed touching the Pontifical author-
ity we declare ought to be held as not decreed ; and we
hold as not to have been deli', jrated everything that was
regarded as deliberated t' the prejudice of the Holy See ;
for our intention was not to decree nor to do anything to
the prejudice of our Churches.' Bossuet, interpreting his
own letter, in his Gallia Orthodoxa, denies that the bishops
intended to abjure as erroneous the doctrines of the four
articles.

The king, on his part, wrote to Innocent XII. to say
that he had given orders that the clauses of his decree
which related to the Declaration should not take effect
(n'ayant pas de suite). Nevertheless, the four articles
did continue to be taught and defended in France.

St. Aignan, who in a thesis had applauded the four ar-
ticles, on being named bishop by Louis XIV., was refus-

72

ROME IN CANADA.

ed his bulls by Clement XL, to whom the king wrote to
explain that ' if he had renounced the right of obliging
his subjects to follow his edict, he did not thereby intend
to prevent them expressing their sentiments on a matter
which was not one of faith.' And the Pope granted the
bulls.

The Declaration being attacked by writers in the ser-
vice of Rome as ' pestiferous,' and such of the clergy as
adopted and upheld it as * the ministers of Satan,'
Louis XIV. engaged Bossuet to undertake its defence ;
which he did, in two folio volumes, on which ten years of
his life were spent. ' We must not believe,' Ranke ob-
serves, that the king ' recalled the four articles, though
the matter was sometimes looked on in that light at
Rome. At a much later period he would not endure that
the Roman Court should refuse institution to the adherents
of the four articles. He declared that he only revoked
the obligation of teaching them; but it was just as little
reasonable that any one should be prohibited from ac-
knowledging them.'

Among thousands of other arrets to the same effect
which issued from the Parliaments of France, one of the
Parliament of Paris, 1773, specially enumerated some of
the rights of the crown and the French Church. In order-
ing the suppression of some writings relating to the
constitution Unigenitus, it forbade all persons to sustain,
in public schools or elsewhere, anything contrary to the
absolute independence of the crown in temporal matters,
in respect to any other power on the earth ; to diminish
the respect due to the canons received in France and the
liberties of the Gallican Church; to assert the infallibility
of the Pope and his superiority over General Councils ; to
attack the authority of the Council of Constance, and
especially the decrees contained in its fourth and fifth
sessions, renewed by the Council of Bale. The authority

LIBERTIES OF THE GALUCAN CHURCH.

73

of the Pope, it was further laid down, ought to be regu-
lated by the canons ; and it was admitted that these
decrees were reformable by the ordinary moans of appeal
to a future Council, unless they had received the consent
of the Church. To prohibit the expression of opinions
instead of waiting to deal with acts is a rule which finds
little favour among British English-speaking people ; still,
some writings are treated by the English laws as (reason-
able, and it was against practices which were regarded as
treason to the national sovereignty of France that this
arrt't was launched.

Under the First Empire, the obligation of teaching the
four articles was renewed by an organic law. The
greatest opposition to them, at all times, came from the
Jesuits. To-day, Gallicanism has scarcely more life in
the country of its birth than in Canada.

After the death of Louis XIV., the great body ot the
French clergy either grew lukewarm in theii defence of
the four articles, or did not to teach them at all ; their
principal defenders were now confined to the Parliaments
and the persecuted Jansenists, against whom not less
than fifty thousand lettres de cachet were issued.*

About one-fitth of the articles of the Syllabus are
directed against propositions which Bossuet deduced
from the four articles ; or constructed out of the floating
debris of the Galilean liberties. This fact gives us the
connecting link between the Vatican Council and the
Assembly otthe French clergy in 1682.

Our Canadian Ultramontanes have a jaunty way of
stating of what the Gallicanism of the present day con-
sists.f It consists, they tell us, ' in whatever tends to

* Origine, Progrrs, ct Limites de la puissance des Papes,ou iklaircissementsiiur les
quatre articles du clerge de France, et sur les liberies de I'eglisc Gallicane.

t Quelques considiirations sur des reponses de quelques thrologiens de Quebec aux
questions proposees par Mgr. de Montreal et Mgr. de Rimouski, etc., etc., etc., par Li
redaction du Franc-Parleur

74

ROME IN CANADA.

exalt the civil power to the prejudice of the sovereignty,
the independence, and the supremacy of the Church ; in
whatever tends to diminish the authority of the Pope,
his supremacy in the Church, his superiority over the
Councils ; in whatever tends to dimi.iish the authority (^f
the bisiiops over the inferior clergy ; in the pretension
that the author*^y of the State is necessary to give effect
to the acts ol the Popes, the bishops, and the cures ; in a
bishop pretending to be Pope in his own diocese ; in a
priest believing himsflf to be bishop in his parish.' The
modern Gallicanism so painted has two faces, one poli-
tical, the other ecclesiastical. This writer described
Canadian Gallicanism, in 1873, ^s being confined to two
societies of priests, by which he no doubt intended to
indicate the Sulpicians of Montreal, and ^he allies of
Vicar-General Cazeau. Political Gallicanism the Ultra-
montanes fi ! in the Code dis Curis ; in three letters
disavowing the principl-^s of the Programme Cntliolique,
which asserted the sovereignty and independence of the
Church ; in the refusal of the demand that the unity of
the public school system of New Brunswick be broken in
the interest of the Church of Rome ; in the writings of
certain theologians of Quebec, who did not accept the
assertion that the creation of a new parish by a bishop
is a legal and binding act without the assent of the civil
power : a proposition sustained by the Sy'labus, and
therefore not to be rejected by the faithful ; in the asser-
tion of the right of the State to regulate and limit the
acquisition and possession of property by the Church,
an assertion condemned by infallible authority. In fine,
Gallicanism, in the mouths of Canadian Ultramontanes,
is the sum of all villanies.

IV.
GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED TO CANADA.

The scheme of administration founded by the genius
of Colbert, which combined administrative centraHzation
with the separation of the spiritual and temporal powers,
continued in force so long as Canada remained a colony
of France. The colony, ceasing to be a mission under
the rule ol the clergy, came under the direction ol a
secular administration, carried on in the name of the
sovereign. That turning point in history where the poli-
tical succeeds the religious power had been reached ; a
change -i^amst which the conduct of the Jesuits some-
times formed a practical protest.

The edict of Louis XIV. giving effect to the Declara
tion of the French clergy of 1682 was not registered by
the Superior Council of Quebec ; but the Gallicpn liber-
ties and franchises were enjoyed in Canada under the
French dominion.* The ecclesiastical law of France
extended to Canada.

* ' It is a principle ol French law,' said Lord Brougham, ' that all ordinances not
registered are void. They only take effect from the date dI their registration.' This
was in obedience to the principle of lenislaticin that a law only acquires furce after it
has been promulgated ; and registration was the only mode of publication known in
France. This practice was introducet" into Canada. IJut n i;istration in Fiance was
not sufficient ; it must be n:ade by the buj.erior Council ol ,>uebec, which was, except
where the king ordered an instrument to be registered, the jud^e of the adaptability
of any ordinance to the condition of the colony. 'The Superior Councils,' says the
Nouvcau Diiiisart, ■ enjoyed in the colonies the same rights as the sovereign courts in
France.' Fdicts, n'i^lements, and ordonnances made by the king expressly for New
France, were invariably addressed to the Superior Council of Quebec, with an order
to register them. But the necessity for registr.uion did not apply to laws made pre-
vious to the establishment of the Sovereign Council. It is admitted that the Coi/c;
JfrtrrAaiirf was in force in Canada, though never registered there. In the same way
the Droit commiin tcclesiaitique of France had force there without the necessity of
registration.

;1 I

76

ROME IN CANADA.

Vicar-General Raymond admits that the principles
embodied in the four articles were adopted in the colony.
But the opposition of Rome began in time to tell. ' As
discussion threw light on the question ' — a lurid and
blinding light — ' and certain acts of the Pontifical See
contained a practical disapprobation of the errors of
Gallicanism, a reformation of ideas took place, and the
doctrines taught came to resemble more and more those
of Rome.'*

Gallican principles formed the guide of the civil
tribunals in Canada under the French dominion ;t and
after the conquest they continued for some time to be
more or less observed, along with an assertion of the
rights of the sovereign, from which in France they were
never separated.;}:

One of the Intendants, Dupuy, in deciding a case
against the pretensions of the Church, embodied in his
judgment a summary of the four articles. § ' These,' he
added, ' are the principles which ought to be taught to
the people here ; rather than abuse the chair of truth,
from which nothing ought to be preached but obedience
to God and the king.' A diifererxe had arisen between
the canons of Quebec respecting the rights and dignities of
one of them ; and they took the ground that they did not
recognize the riglit of any judge in Canada to settle the
dispute ; whereupon the Intendant found it necessary to
define the powers of the Superior Council of Quebec. ||
The Intendant claimed for the Superior Council the place
which the Parliaments occupied in the different Provinces

* Vicar-General Raymond.

-f Judge Daudry. Code de& Cur^s.

t Diet. Univ.

iOrdonnance 6 rr.e. Janvier, 1748.

I Ordonnance Janvier 4, 1738.

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED.

77

of France.* There was no order of men in the colony
which was not subject to the correction of this tribunal.
The contrary assertion was characterized as a formal
disobedience and a seditious independence.

The chapter of Quebec wished to retain, besides the
mortal remains of the late bishop, his cross, his mitre, and
his other pontifical ornaments, contrary to the positive
dispositions of his will, by which his body was to be buried
in the Church of Notre-Dame-de«: Anges. This church had
been erected into a parish over which the canons had no
control. They, however, resisted the order for the burial,
and when the hour at which it was to take place arrived,
they sounded the tocsin in thsir church, under the false
pretence tiiat the General Hospital had taken iire. This
brought together a crowd, who rushed to the church
where the burial was to take place, the baffled canons
marching ' tumultuously and seditiously,' at their head.
They threatened to depose the Superior of the general
hospital and interdict the Church of Notre-Dame, which
was connected with it. On being ordered to appear be-
fore the Superior Council, the chapter and canons re-
fused. The Superior Council ordained that they should
be constrained by the seizure of their temporalities both
in France and Canada. Their pretension that the bishop-
ric of Quebec had become vacant by tlie death of the
late bishop, while M. Louis Francois de Mornay was co-
adjutor with right ol succession was alive, wasdisallowed.f
* The people,' the ordonnance read, 'cannot know with too
great precisi«>n that the power proper to ecclesiastics is
only over the spiritual, and the t'lings which concern

* And this accords with Garneau's estimate of that tribunal. ' Le Roi,' he said, ' fit
organiser une cour Supt'rieure sous Ic iiom de Conseil Souverain de Qu<''bec,qui fut
I'iTiage du Parlement de Paris. Le n'glement supn'rne de toutes les affaires de la
culonie, tout aJministratives que judiciares, fut dt'fiT.' a cettc cour, qui refut les
memes pouvoirs que les Cours Souveraines de Ffance.'

+ O'dDnnance (^ Janvier, 1728.

f

78

ROME IN CANADA.

the salvation of seals, the orders to be conferred upon
ministers of the Church, the administration of the sacra-
ments, and whatever results from the sacrament of mar-
riage and other sacraments; and that the other rights of
ecclesiastics and seculars between themselves are purely
temporal matters, subject to the power of the king, and
to the cognizance of the judges charged with the execu-
tion of his justice over all his subjects without distinction,
of whom the ecclesiastics ought to show themselves the
most submissive.'

The Church writers have ceased to deny that the Galli-
can liberties were introduced into Canada by France; and
they say it matters little whether the whole body of the
droit gdllicnn was transplanted to the colony or not ;
since, on the cessation of the French dominion, the rela-
tions which existed between the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities underwent a complete change.*

The Superior Council of Quebec was, by the edict
which created it, empowered to take cognizance of all
causes, civil and criminal, and to decide thf m, in the last,
resort, according to the laws and ordinances. Pagnuelo
contends that the appcl covime d'nbus is a part of the
droit gnllican which was never brougb.t into Canada ; but
it is certain that this form of appeal was received by the
Superior Council of Quebec from sentences rendered in
the Bishop's court, (Officialitr) of Quebec. Thiij form of
procedure was used in the affair of the canons of Quebec
against an ordinance of the bishop (April 24 and June
30, 1693) ; against M. Deminiac, Viccir-General, the sub-
ject of contention being the position of a pew in the
church (April 21, 1738) ; and against the chapter of Que-
bec, only ten years before the conquest (June 30, 1750).

This court was at first composed of the Governor, the
Bishop, and five councillors; the number of councillors

♦ Pagnuelo.

i

I ill

i <M

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED

79

was increased in 1G75 to seven. The Bishop's court
{Officialite), from which, accordinj? to M. Montigny,
the Sovereign Council rezeivedappcls comme d'abus,cea.sed
to exist in 1759.

In France, the Official was an ecclesiastic to whose jur-
isdiction all the clerks of the bishopric or archbishopric were
amenable, in purely personal actions. He also had
cognizance of four kinds of actions between laymen : tithes
aupetitoire, the validity or invalidity of marriage, heresy,
and simony. The Official also had cognizance of certain
crimes committed by ecclesiastics, but he could impose
no other than canonic penalties; and when tlie crimes
were of a nature to be punished corporeally or by imprison-
ment, they were always tried by the secular judge. The
Official was obliged to observe a form of procedure pre-
scribed by royal ordonnances.* The Offi.ciolite, in Can-
ada, was presumably framed on this model ; though it
seems to have seldom, some enoneously allege that it never,
exercised its functions.

It IS well established that, under the French dominion,
the common ecclesiastical law of France was in force in
Canada. But that this law has since been modified in
many particulars, and always in favour of the Church of
Rome, is equally indisputable.

The civil government interfered in the minutest details
of ecclesiastical administration. The intention was to-
introduce a conformity to the practice and usage ' ob-
served in the kingdom of France, where ordinary affairs
are never decided but by a majority of the votes of the
marguilliers in charge, and extraordinary affairs by calling
in the aid of a sufficient number of marguilliers who have
gone out of office, the cure being always present. 't When
they neglected their duties they were sometimes ordered

* Montigny, Histoire du droit CanaJien
t Ord. du Con. Sup. 12 Fer., 1675

^f

80 ROME IN CANADA.

to appear before the Superior Council to answer for their
default. They were repeatedly ordered to render honours in
the Church to those who were entitled, under the scheme
of ecclesiastical discipline in force in Canada, to receive
them. It was their duty to watch over the property of the
Fabriquc. Dut sometimesthe marguilliers were cowed by
the audacity of the ecclesiastics, and were alraid to per-
form their duty. Thus, when the ecclesiastics of the
Scaiinary of Quebec of their own authority emptied the
graves of a little cemetery adjoining the grounds on which
their building stood, annexed it to their Seminary, and
converted it into a garden ; when they built upon another
piece of ground which the piety of Sieur Couillardand his
wife had given for the use of processions round the
Church, Frontenac says the marguilliers were afraid to
oppose to the act so much as a remonstrance. The Gov-
ernor told them it was desirable that the}' should demand
restitution of these lands. The marguilliers having been
ordered to attend before the Superior Council, explained
that the ground was all contained in the outer enclosure
of the Seminary, and that two large doors had been
lelt for the use of processions. The Governor re-
plied that these doors served no other purpose than to
admit the passage of cordwood which the ecclesiastics
required, and that the carts occupied the ground required
lor processions ; that no processions had taken place
there for some time, and that there was an evident inten-
tion to discontinue them. This was prophetic ; in process
of time the religious processions filled the streets of Que-
bec. A hundred and thirty or-forty years after this date,
Mgr. Plessis laid it down as a rule, that where the Pro-
testants were in th', majority the processions should be
confined to the church ; now they encumber the streets
of all our cities. The Council, Frontenac told the negli-
gent Marguilliers, should watch over the conservation of

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED.

8i

what belonged to the Fabrique as a pubhc thing, and
he added that the secular judges had the right to examine
the accounts of the marguilliers, and that it was their
duty to do so when there was reason to believe that an
abuse had been committed.* Two ol the marguilliers
gave mortal offence to the Governor by remarking, one
of them, that the property of the Church would be en-
dangered if the secular judges could enquire into the ac-
counts of these functionaries ; the other, that were this to
happen, they would no longer depend on the bishop.
Frontenac complained of these expressions as disrespect-
ful towards the magistrates ; and suggested that it might
be necessary to prevent ecclesiastics coming from France
in future. When the marguilliers had first appeared be-
fore the Council, they sarcastically begged to be secured
in the right which the Governor ascribed to them, of per-
forming the honours of the Church ' except on the days
when the Council should appear there in a body.' An
arret was passed, t ordering the marguilleirs to give the
officers of justice and the members of the West India
Company an honourable place in their church, after that
of the Council, and in other churches to local officers of
justice after the governors of the places and the private
seigneurs. Thus the first place was given to the Council,
of which the Governor was a member, and to which the
marguilliers had intimated their desire to be relieved
from the necessity of rendering any honours at all.

Endless disputes arose over the order in which honours
in the church -vere to be awarded, and there were num-
erous judicial decisions on the subject. The marguil-
liers sometimes evinced a reluctance to put others before
themselves. The clerk of the Royal Jurisdiction of Mont-
real had been in the habit of receiving the pain-hmit be-

♦ Ord. du Con. Sup. Mars i8, 1673.
f 26 Mars, 1675.

^

RO^fE IN CANADA.

Ill

1 ■

fore the rnarguilliers, whose jealousy made them resolve
to put a stop to the preference. In vain this officer ot
justice pointed to the law which provided that the 'sacra-
mental bread shall be presented to the Governor, the
lieutenant of the king and the officers of the Royal Juris-
diction, then to the rnarguilliers in charge, and indiffe-
rently to all who may be found in the church.' The case
came before the Intendant, Hoquart, and he ordered the
offending marguilliers to appear before him next morning,
and that the clerk of the Royal Jurisdiction should con-
tinue to enjoy the honours annexed to his charge.

In numerous instances priority was ordered to be given
to those entitled to it in the socia hierarchy, conformably
to the rules and ordinances of the king.*

The Intendant of Justice, sitting in the King's Court,
decided causes according to the rules of the 'discipline of
the Church and the ordinances of the king.'f By his
judgments, which were called oidinances, the sisters of
the congregation were forbidden to take vows, and any
which they might take in future were declared null.t
The Fri-res Hospitaliers ot Montreal were forbidden to
wear the distinctive dress oi the Order ; were directed to
doff the black capot, the girdle of black silk, and the mus-
lin bands, and to confine themselves strictly to the rights
accorded in their letters patent of living in community. 5[

The nunneries were not free from fiscal supervision by
the State. Sister Ste. Hdene, who had charge of the pro-
perty of the Hotel Dieu, Quebec, was required by an
ordinance in 1727 to render an account of her stewardship;
to furnish a statement of the goods and money she came

* Jug. Mars 23, 1737.
+ Ord. Nov a6, 1706.
\ Die. 14, 1708.
H Ord. Dec, 1708

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED.

83

£)

into possession of on the death of her predecessor, of
what she had received afterwards, and of what was then
in her possession, and, if required, to be prepared to swear
to the correctness of the accounts.

The minimum dot which each religious was to pay on
entering the General Hospital of Quebec was fixed by
law at five thousand livres ; and the stipulations concerning
the dots of young women who were to enter convents in
New France were required to be presented to the Gover-
nor-General and the Intendant to be visces before the
taking of the veil, and the superiors of religious houses
were forbidden to receive and admit to profession any
y )ung women until the stipulations regarding the sum
they were to pay b}' way of portion had been so vist-es.*

This restriction of novices to young women whose
parents could afford to pay for each of them five thousand
Uvres reduced in the short space of ten years the conven-
tual communities to bands of aged and infirm females,
and these institutions were rapidly sinking into decay.
The high tariff rendered it impossible to fill up the gaps
made by death, owing to the comparative poverty of the
inhabitants. As the convents then offered the only means
of educating girls, and as it was thought the sick would
suffer for want of the attention which the nunneries, if
maintained in greater vigour, could afford, the amount of
the dot was reduced to three thousand livres. f The rules
for enforcing the payment of this amount were the same
as those previously laid down. The number of nuns ad-
mitted into the General Hospital of Quebec was regulated
by law,| and altered from time to time, as the Govern-
ment conceived it to be desirable.

* Arret du Conseil du Roi Mai 31, 1732.

t Ariet du Conseil d'Etat ij Mars, 1733.

} Lettres Patentes, Avril 1737 ; Arret du Conseil d'Etat 1701 ; et Lettres Patentes
Mars I7IS.

6

•4 ROME IN CANADA

The attempt to make the convents a sanctuary and a
refuge for criminals was forbidden. The pernicious habit
of making these places a shelter for criminals had been
formed by the indiscreet zeal of ecclesiastics and religious ",
and the civil law interposed to put an end to the abuse,
dangerous at once to the authority of the civil power and
the public security. 5[ But the civil officers were to enter
the convents in search of secreted criminals only in case
there were good reasons to believe the law had been vio-
lated, and even then they were not to enter unless in
urgent cases till the authority of the bishop or one of the
Vicars-General had been obtained. The civil officers, on
entering a convent, were to notify one of the priests to
be present ; and the minute of the proceedings to be
drawn up was to state the fact of his presence.

Under the 28gth article of the Custom of Paris mis-
sionaries were incapable of receiving wills, though fixed
cures were not under the same disability. This prohi-
bition was removed by an ordinance of 1722. To wills
so received there must be three male witnesses, twenty
years of age ; and mention had to be made in the instru-
ment that it had been dictated by the testator and after-
wards read and re-read to him. So great were the pre-
cautions against fraud.

As seigneurs of Sillery, the Jesuits had, like the Sulpi-
cicions of Montreal, been entrusted with the administra-
tion of justice in the higher as well as in the lower jurisdic-
tion. Their powers over the higher jurisdiction were
withdrawn in 1707, not only in respect to this seignory,
but also in respect to lands they held in fief in Three
Rivers. t

Two priests, M. Remy and de Francheville, on refus-
ing to obey an order to appear before the Superior Council

f Ordonnance 19 Fev, 173a.
t Ord. Oct. 22, 1707,

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED.

8,

ra-
lic-
jre

•y.

ree

:il

of Quebec, had a fine imposed upon them. The Abbo de
Fenelon, who had been a missionary to the Iroquois at
the Bay of Kante, attacked Governor Frontenac in a ser-
mon delivered in the parish church of Montreal, in which,
among other things, it was intimated that he did not pay
due respect to the priests. Frontenac demanded a copy
of the sermon, which Fenelon refused to give. ' I pro-
nounced my discourse,' the priest said, 'before two liun-
dred persons ; inquire of them if you will. If J be inno-
cent, there is nothing to be asked of me ; if I be guilty,
which I lormally deny, no one has a right to ask me to
supply materials for my own condemnation.' After refus-
ing to give a copy of the sermon the priest, brought be-
fore the Superior Council, denied the competency of that
tribunal. The Council stopped all parley by sending
him to prison. The priest appealed to the ecclesiastical
court, which he pretended was alone competent to deal
with the case. Besides, he objected to be tried by judges
who were friends of the Governor, and who had received
their appointments from him. The Council having ordered
the Vicar-General and Official, M. de Bernitires, to appear
before it, reprimanded him, and warned him not again to
entertain requests of the nature of that addressed to him
by M. de Fenelon. This priest was sent to France in
the autumn of 1674, and when the case came before the
notice of the king, Louis XIV. said: 'I blame the action
of the Abbe Fenelon, and I have ordered him not to
return to Canada.' But there were difficulties about pro-
ceeding criminally against Fenelon, or requiring the
priests of Saint Sulpice to appear against him. The king,
apparently moved by motives of prudence, temporized.
He thought it would be best to allow the accused's bish-
op or Vicar-Genera! to mete out to him ecclesiastical
penalties. It may have crossed the mind of the king that
neither of these ecclesiastics might adopt his view of the

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86

ROME IN CANADA.

complaint, or do whdt was required of him ; for he pro-
posed, as the alternative of such punishment, which Fene-
lon was to be sent to Canada to undergo, that the offen-
der should be arrested and re-conveyed to France.*
The civil authority assumed absolute power over the per-
sonal liberty of the accused, implying a legal right to
take cognizance of the complaint.

When M. Charon, founder of the General Hospital of
Villemarie, (Montreal), desired to establish a community of
Maitres d' ecloles, M. de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine,
prohibited him from forming a religious community.
The Hospitalieres performed their functions by the
authority of letters patent from the king. On a dispute
between Bishop Laval and the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice,
M. Talon, Intendant-General, adjudicated. M, de Saint
Vallier desired the Sisters of the Congregation to make a
vow of obedience to himself as bishop, but the Govern-
ment forbade them to make any vows whatever. +

On the installation of Bishop Pontbriand, successor of
Laval, the king remarked that the bulls and provisions
conveyed by the Pope having been examined by his Coun-
cil and found to contain nothing contrary to the privi-
leges, franchises and liberties of the Gallican Church, he
would permit the new bishop to take the oath of fidelity. J
This shows that if Louis XIV. had consented, contrary
to what he and the Parliament of Paris had contended
was the true intent of the Concordat, to allow the Pope
to appoint the first bishop, Laval, he now showed that
the crown would not forego its right of examining and
passing upon the bulls granted to a new bishop. The
Canadian bishops, under the French regime, were re-

* Ferland. Hist, du Canada.

t Faillon. Memoirs particuliers pour servir i I'Histoire de I'Eglise de TAmdrique
du Nord.

{ Edmond Lareau. Histoire de la littdrature Canadienne.

GALLICANTSM TRANSPLANTED.

87

quired to take the oath of fidelity to the crown ;§ a pro-
ceeding against which the Pope protested without effect.

No religious order could be created in the colony with-
out the authority of the king, and the Sisters of the Con-
gregation were at one time expressly prohibited from
being cloistered or taking vows. The amount of tithe
payable, instead of following the rule of the canon law,
was regulated by the Government, and was not always
invariable in amount. A multitude of edicts, ordi-
nances, and arrets of the Council of State regulated and
enforced the discipline of the Church. The decrees of
the Inquisition, under which, in New Spain, torrents of
blood were shed, were never admitted in Canada.

But there were other contrasts between the ecclesiasti-
cal discipline of Canada and of New Spain of a different
kind, which it may be convenient now to point out.

Excepting reserved cases, the Pope never had any
direct authority in the Spanish American colonies. What-
ever pontifical authority was exercised there entered
through the prism of royal authority.]] All bulls, briefs,
dispensations, indulgences, were required to be sent from
Rome to the King of Spain, who committed their examin-
ation to tha Council of the Indies, and on the report of
that body their execution was permitted or refused. All
persons connected with the ecclesiastical administration,
from the porter of the cathedral to the bishop, were ap-
pointed by the king. No cathedral, no parish churcH, no
monastery, no hospital could be founded within the Span-

§ The following is from the oath taken by Bishop Pontbriand : — ' Sire, — I Henry-
Marie du Breil de Pontbriand, Bishop of Quebec, swear in the most holy and sacred
name of C^od, and promise your majeUy, that I will be, as long as I live, your faithfu|
subject and servant, that I will procure with all my power the good and the service of
the State, that I will not enter into any council, design, or enterprise to the prejudice
of the same, an'l if any such thing should come to my knowledge, I will make it known
to your majesty. So help me God, and the Holy Gospels by me touched. — Signed,
H. M, Du Breil de Pontbriand, Eveque de Quebec'

I Depone. Voj age dans I'Amerique meridionals

88

ROME IN CANADA.

ish dominions in America without express authority from
the king of Spain. If archbishops, bishops, and abbes
were nominated by the Pope, it was only on the spontan-
eous presentation of the king. The canonries were dis-
posed of in the same way. Pluralities were absolutely
prohibited. It was the duty of the bishops to turnish the
kmgan account of the vacant benefices in their dioceses,
with a statement of their revenues and the names of the
individuals niost worthy to fill them. Candidates were
required to apply to the viceroys, by whom the applica-
tions were forwarded to Spain. The representative of
the king nominated to the cures ; the bishop offered three
names from which the selection was made. When, in the
lapse of time, the nomination became a mere formality,
from the practice of selecting the first name on the list,
the jealousy of the crown prevented it from beinglormally
abandoned. In 1770, the orders of the king made it obli-
gatory on the viceroy to select the first name on the list,
unless there were good reasons for not doing so. Native
priests had the preference over Spaniards ; and no foreign
born priest, unless he had obtained letters of naturaliza-
tion, was allowed to possess any benefice. All questions
arising out of the exercise of patronage were referred to
the Council of the Indies. To the Pope nothing was left
but the barren privilege of granting the necessary bulls.
The bishops paid annates to the king, not to the Pope. At
first the amount was only a twelfth ; but in time the
bishoprics, like all other benefices, were required to pay
the first year's income under the name of annuidad. As
it would often be oppressive to exact the whole year's re-
venue in one year, the payment came to be divided into
six parts and spread over as many years. The oath
taken by the bishops on their installation obliged them to
respect, in every particular, the royal patronage, and to
oppose no obstacle to the exercise of the right of collect-

GALLICANISM TRANSPLANTED.

89

ing the royal dues. Until he presented a certifia that he
had taken this oath, the new bishop could not enter on
his charge. Appeals to Rome were confined to reserved
causes. The Bishop's Courts were each composed of the
bishop, the fiscal proctor, and the provisor. Appeals from
their decisions went before the archbishop, whose judg-
ment, however, was not necessarily final except as against
the appellant. The second appeal did not go, in the as-
cending order, to the Pope, but to the nearest bishop, and
his judgment was definitive. These ecclesiastical courts of
Spanish America came into collision with the civil tri-
bunals ; and in the clash of jurisdiction the secular au-
thority had a tendency to prevail. While the ecclesiasti-
cal jurisdiction embraced all purely spiritual causes, the
secular tribunals had concurrent authority, even though
both litigants were ecclesiastics. Causes arising out of
the payment of ecclesiastical tithes were treated as tnixti
fori, and might come either under the ecclesiastical or
the lay jurisdiction. The process in the ecclesiastical
courts followed the forms of the secular tribunals. If the
ecclesiastical courts were swifter in their action and less
expensive, they were still far from perfection. The
right of asylum, which the Po^^es made a point of main-
taining, and which shielded Irom arrest the worst male-
factors who took refuge in the churches, often paralyzed
the arm of justice.*

I have dwelt at some length on this subject, because it
is not generally understood that New Spain was nurtured
in stricter ideas of national predominance than New
France.

* If we are to credit Clavijo (Noticias de la Historia General de las Islasde Can-
aria), a similar right of asylum was observed by the natives: of the Canary Islands, to
whom Christianity was unknown : . . . Ningun privilegio apreciaban tanto

como al de hacer todas los dias k la Divinidad sus libaciones de leche en medio del
Tetnplo, cuyo sagrada era un asylo y luf.ar de refigio, que nadie violaba impunemente.

90

ROME IN CANADA.

V.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

The early Jesuit missionaries in Canada were men to
whom it would be impossible to deny the possession of
many virtues. Their life, when in the depths of the forest,
where they confined themselves to their proper vocation,
was one of heroic self-sacrifice. The story ol their mis-
sionary labours, the perils they encountered, the deaths
they courted at the hands ot savages whom they went to
save — through famine and pestilence and fatigue beyond
the power of the most robust to endure — have often been
told, and well told, generally with a spicfe of allowable
eulogy. But there was another side to their character; and
of that side but very little is popularly known When they
emerged from the forest and took up their quarters at the
centres of political power, they sometimes engaged in
intrigues hostile to the Government, and propagated
principles the reverse of Gallican, which struck at the
root of civil authority.

In their attempt to make of Canada another Paraguay,
in which their sway should be absolute and complete,
they so far succeeded as to overthrow the tolerant policy
of Sully, to chase the Huguenots from the colony, and to
prevent the teaching therein of any doctrine contrary to
that of the Roman Catholic Church. This prohibition is
repeated in a number of public documents, issued under
the authority of the King's Council and the Parliament
of Paris. This prohibition accorded well with the policy
of establishing a National Church in the colony ; for if
Rome was an enemy of the king. New England Protes-

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

91

tantism was an enemy of another kind, and there was the
same necessity, it was then thought, for holding both in
check.

Besides, though the Jesuits sometimes proved trouble-
some at the cei^tres of colonial power, they were often of
essential service to the French Crown when attending to
their spiritual duties on distant missions. In the depths
of the forest, along a border line cf territory disputed by
two colonizing nations, and surrounded by hostile tribe; ^
to conciliate the good will of which each nation was try-
ing, the Jesuit missionaries might so exercise their
influence as to be of great service to the French Govern-
ment; and that they did so exercise it, M. L. Dussieux,*
after reading all the documents relating to Canada in the
archives in the Marine and War Departments, avers. f

Charlevoix, himself a Jesuit, says the presence of a
priest among the Indians was often of more value than a
whole garrison ; and he cites the example of Illinois,
which, since the year 1717, had been incorporated in
the Government of Louisiana, as a proof of the great im-
portance, in a political point of view, of sending mission-
aries among the other tribes. He points to the experience
of tw ) centuries in proof that the best means of attaching
the Indians to France was to convert them.|

As late as 1725, a priest of Saint Lazare, who had
personal knowledge of the country, addressed to the
French Government a programme for the civil as well as
the spiritual government of the colony. He recom-
mended that the Jesuits be maintained among the Iroquois

* Le Canada sous la Domination Franfaise, d'apr^s les archives de la marine et de
la guerre.

t The military school of Saint Cyr, in which M. Dussieux is a lecturer, receives a
large supply of scholars from a Jesuit college m Paris, a fact which may account for
suppression of this statement in a second edition of his Work on Canada. But
fact cannot so easily be blotted out.

Histoin Ginirak de la Nouvelle France,

'!

ga

ROME IN CANADA.

for political reasons, since, in his opinion, they alone were
capable of preventing them from becoming attached to the
enemies of France. §

Frontenac has left it on record that the Jesuits did, in
his time, make an attempt to grasp the whole authority
of the colony in their hands. In every family they set a
spy ; from every pulpit they denounced all who opposed
their pretensions, not sparing even the Governor himself.

The ecclesiastical superiors, when remonstrated with,
readily joined in blammg the preachers ; at the same
time apologizing for conduct which they could not defend,
by attributing it to an excess of zeal. The Governor
affected to be satisfied with this explanation ; but he
took care to state that, if the offence were repeated, he
would ' put the preacher in a place where he would learn
how to speak.'

This had the effect of restraining the license of the
pulpit for a while ; but the Jesuits never abandoned the
attempt to exalt, in the minds of the people, their own
authority over that of the Government, even in secular
matters. By means of hired spies and an abuse of the
confessional, they possessed themselves of the secrets of
every family. The use they made of this information was
to tell husbands what their wives had confessed, and
mothers the weaknesses of their daughters. * They aimed,'
says Frontenac, ' to establish a species of Inquisition a
thousand times worse than that of Italy or Spain.' The
Governor remonstrated against this conduct, but without
effect. He at last threatened that the first spy who should
circulate a scandal about his neighbour, witiiout good
proof, would be treated as a calumniator, who set public
authority at defiance.

These statements of Frontenac are in perfect accord
with the evidence of Baron de Lahontan, who spent part

S Ferland. Cours d'HUtoire du Canada, Vol.11.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

93

of the winter of 1684-5 at Montreal.* The all-pervading
espionage of the Jesuits rendered life at Ville Marie
miserable. No one could have or attend a pleasure party,
engage in diversions, or visit ladies, without coming
under the censure of the priest, who spoke ot them pub-
licly in the church and named the offenders.

A noble lady would be refused admission to the com-
munion on account of the colour of her head-dress. In
our day, Bishop Bourget has contented himself with
crying down crinoline, without making the offence of
wearing it a cause for refusing the sacraments.f The
Jesuits made the wearing of a mask a cause of excommu-
nication. They watched the conduct of the wives and
daughters of the citizens with a vigilance greater than
that exercised by husbands and mothers. They condemned
to the flames all books which did not treat of devotion.
Fmding the Adventures of Petrone, the property of Baron
de Lahontan, and which he professes to have valued
more highly than his life, in the house of his host, the
priest tore it up in a rage. Lahontan vowed that if he
could have found the priest when he first saw the
destruction he had made, he would have plucked out his
beard. No one was allowed to play lansquenet, or to read
a romance or a comedy, on pain of excommunication.
In our day the priest Villeneuve writes a comedy of five
hundred pages, which is a series of elaborate libels. The
Jesuits desired to monopolize all the secrets of society
themselves ; and for this reason they denied the right of
the Recollets to hear confessions. |

A rupture had taken place between Bishop Laval and
the Governor, on the subject of permitting or prohibiting

* Nouveaux Voyages de M. Le Baron de Lahontan, dans L'AmSrique septentrumaU.

+ Circulaire 26 Novr. i860,

{Pope Urban VIII., in 163s, gave theRicollets the necessary powers to resume
their mission in Canada.— Faillon, Vie de Madmoiselle Mance.

94

ROME IN CANADA.

I

the sale of brandy to the Indians. The Governor con-
tended for a regulated traffic ; the bishop for a total pro-
hibition of the commerce.* The Governor, however,
rigorously forbade any one to take brandy to the Indians
in the woods. The Jesuits, to whom Frontenac was
obnoxious, and who were glad of a pretext for assailing
him, took part with the bishop in denouncing the traffic
and the Governor.

The Jesuits were powerful enough to make bishops,
and unmake governors. The bishopric of Quebec had
been founded at their suggestion, and the first bishop
was their choice. By their intrigues, three governors
had been removed in rapid succession. And now they
had turned their artillery upon Frontenac, with the same
design. But, being a relation ol Madame de Maintenon,
his credit at Court enabled him to brave the iury of the
Jesuits for the period of ten years.

The bishop had gone to France to try to induce the
Court to accept his views on the brandy traffic ; and while
he was there, Frontenac wrote a letter to the king, in
which he describes the annoyance to which he was sub-
jected by the Jesuit priests.f He describes the bishop
as being in a state of absolute dependence on the Jesuits,
and expresses the hope that, should that functionary re-
sign, a successor would be appointed who was not under
that baleful influence.

The Jesuits denied the power of the sovereign to author-
ize this traffic ; it was, they said, one of the things over
which his authority did not extend ; it belonged to the
domain of the Church. These statements were made
in the pulpit, in the presence of the Governor. So great
was the annoyance he felt at being obliged to listen to
them, that he several times felt tempted to interrupt the

* Histoire de Vcau de vie tn Canada, written by a priest at the time of the dispute.
t Frontenac d Monseigneur MS. Archives de Paris.

THE JESUITS AND THE CiVIL POWER.

9S

sermon by leaving the church with his guards. But he
contented himself with visiting the Vicar-General and the
Superior of the Jesuits, and complaining to them of the
conduct of the offending priests.

Frontenac brought the powerful weapon of ridicule into
play against the ecclesiastics who attacked his authority
and endeavoured to thwart his policy. He is said to
have employed, with questionable taste, actors and danc-
ing girls in the castle of St. Louis, and even in some of
the religious houses, in presence of the inmates, to per-
form comedies in ridicule of ecclesiastics whom he desir-
ed to belittle in the public estimation.* His quarrel was
with the Jesuits and the bishop under their control.
Partly out of rivalry, perhaps, but mainly on account of
the difference in the conduct ot the two religious orders,
he favoured the Recollets. He stated, at his own dinner
table, in 1678, in the presence of the bishop and Father
Hennepin, a Recollet missionary, that he should make
the Court acquainted with the zeal of the Rocollets and
the generous nature of their enterprises.! His will con-
tained a direction that his body should be buried in the
church of this order in the city of Quebec, to which,
Miles says, he had granted the land on which their
house was built, had materially aided other of their es-
tablishments, ' and professed to be a sort ol trustee in
their behalf, as well as a protector.'

What the Jesuits were then doing, under the French
dominion, they are repeating to-day. Are they destined
to meet a similar check ? A like success they cannot
have.

The age was intolerant. The New England Puritan,
who had fled across the seas to secure an asylum in
which he could exercise his religion in safety, became in

* Miles. The History of Canada under the French Regime.
\ Hennepin. Description de la Louisiane.

96

ROME IN CANADA.

turn a persecutor. But the malady passed away with the
evil time. Not so with the Jesuit : his spirit is as in-
tolerant to-day as it was two hundred years ago, and he
is busy in repeating attacks which in the sixteenth cen-
tury he made on the authority of the colonial govern-
ment of France, of which Frontenac so bitterly com-
plained.

When Nova Scotia passed, by the Treaty of Utrecht,
under the crown of England, the priests persuaded the
Acadians to refuse to take the oath of allegiance to their
new master. ' I do verily believe,' said Lieutenant-
Governor Doucette, in a letter to the Secretary of State,
November 5, 1717, ' all would become subjects of His
Majesty if it were not for the priests amongst them,'
who made them believe that the Pretender would soon be
placed on the throne, and Canada would again fall under
the French dominion. There was nothing in the form of
the oath to which any objection could be made. It only
required the Acadians to ' declare and most solemnly
swear before God to own him (the king ol Great Britain)
as our sovereign king, and to obey him as his true and
lawful subjects.' No abjuration was required, and the
free exercise of their religion was to be granted to the
new subjects. One priest, with whom Governor Phi-
lipps had an interview, urged as reasons why they could
not become subjects of England, that they had signed a
paper which obliged them to remain subjects of France,
and that such a declaration of a change of allegiance
would render their lives insecure by arousing the wrath
of the Indians, whom, far from having reasons to fear,
they had reduced to the most submissive obedience.
The king of France, had in the act of handing over these
subjects to another sovereign, released them from their
oath, which could only oblige them to serve him so long
as their relation of subjects to him remained unaltered.

THE JESUITS AND^TIIE CIVIL POWER. 97

' It is a hard and uneasy task in rny circumstances,'
Governor Philipps wrote to Secretary Cra{^gs, May 26,
1720, 'to manage a people that will neither hearken to
reason (unless it comes out of the mouths of their priests)
and at the same time to keep up the honour and dignity
ol the Government.' Unless the oath were taken or the
priests recalled, Philipps believed that, in the event ol
war again breaking out between the two crowns, the
Acadians would be so many enemies in the midst of the
country. The priests may have felt the fear with which
they inspired their flocks : that if the Acadians took the
oath they would, in a short time, be reduced to the condi-
tion of the Catholics of Ireland ; but that the former sub-
jects of France could retain their allegiance to the nation
that had been obliged to cede their territory to a rival
was too grotesque a notion to be seriously entertained by
the men by whom it was instilled into the minds of the sim-
ple peasants. It was these misleading guides of the Aca-
dians who forced them at last to choose between allegiance
to the new sovereign and deportation. If Basil, the
Blacksmith, with a face flushed and distorted with pas-
sion, cried :

' Down with the tyrants of England ! We never have
sworn them allegiance,'

the true reading of the history is that the Father Feli-
cians had inspired him with that passion, instead of
meekly praying for the new masters : " O Father
forgive them I "* Admit that the deportation was a
mistake, a cruelty, and a wrong, what then ? It
still remains true that the real authors of it are the
men who mduced the simple Acadians to believe that
they could continue to be French subjects in a British
colony. Those who took the oath were allowed to re-

♦ Longfellow. Evangeline. '

98

ROME IN CANADA.

tain their possessions.! The French of Cape Breton,
who could still legally indulge their original allegiance,
exercised a paramount influence not only over their coun-
trymen in Nova Scotia, but also over the Indians. The
Bishop of Quebec continued to send priests to Nova-
Scotia, to order the building of churches there and to ex-
ercise other acts of authority. Governor Armstrong des-
paired of seeing the people brought to obedience unless
'the insolent behaviour of these priests ' could be curbed.*
When the inhabitants asked to have the services of a
priest, the British Governor seems to have had no other
resource than to write to the Governor of Cape Breton to
send him one who would be likely to prove inoffensive. t
Sometimes priests were sent out of the Province for con-
duct ' tending to a jurisdiction of their own, independent
of his majesty's authority' and the civil government ;X
and when one gave in his submission, under circumstances
which threw a doubt on his sincerity, he was required to
find security for his future good behaviour, as a condi-
tion of his remaining in the Province.§

The use of the confessional as a means of restoring pro-
perty wrongfully taken by thepenitent has been much ex-
tolled. Governor Mascareneof Nova Scotia, June 29, 1741,
complained that thi" power was sometimes greatly abused ;
so much so that 'the missionaries often went so far as to make
themselves sovereign judges of all causes.' Then follows
the example of a parishioner who complains to a priest
that his neighbour owes him a debt or detains something
belonging to him. The priest examines witnesses, and

t The ' French Popish missionary is the real chief commander of his flock, and re-
ceives and takes his commands from his superiors in Cape Breton.' P. Mascarene
1730, in Nova Scotia Archives.

• Despatch to Lords of Trade, Nov. i6, 1731.

t Gov. Armstrong to St. Ovide, June 17, 173a. .

J Minutes of N. S. Council, May 18, 1736.

{ Minutes of N. S. Council, Oct. 11, 1726.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

99

then, deciding in a judicial manner, condemns the accused
to make restitution ; the execution of the sentence being
enforced by a threat to refuse the sacramenis for noncom
pliance.* In New Spain, the confessors made a resti
tution of duties withheld from the king a condition of ab
solution. The confessor was generally the channe
through which restitution was made. The Spanish Gov
ernment, it was estimated, was defrauded of $400,000
every year in America ; and of this amount only $500
was restored. As a means of ensuring restitution, the
confessional would seem to be a very inadequate instru-
ment. When it does cause something wrongfully obtained
or detained to be restored, if it makes the mere confession
and disgorgement a condition of forgiveness, it is not likely
to act as a spur to the performance of duty.

The absolute subordination of the missionaries to their
superiors was found a cause of much difficulty.^ The
Vicar-General of the Bishop of Quebec, in Nova Scotia,
promised obedience. Finally no priests were allowed to
enter the Province without leave. § None were to presume
to exercise any ecclesiastical power of the Church of
Rome therein ; the fourteenth article of the treaty of
Utrecht granted Roman Catholics the free exercise of
their religion, 'so far as the laws of Great Britain permit.'
The rule came to be that no priest could exercise his spi-
ritual functions until he received the approbation of the
commander-in-chief and of the Council; and no mission-
ary was allowed to remove from one parish to another
without first obtaining leave from the Government. || The
Bishop of Quebec claimed the right of sending into the
Province missionaries at discretion. For assuming the

* Governor's Letter-Book.

X Governor Mascarene to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 23, 1741.

{ Mascarene, June 16, 1742. . ,- >

■ Mascarene, June 16, 1743.

zoo

ROME IN CANADA.

title of Vicars-General two priests were ordered to leave
the Province.* The missionaries of the French at
Louisburg, acting in the conjunction with the priests,
brought over the Indians of Nova Scotia to their sidet
at a critical juncture.

M. J. L. LeLoutre, a missionary priest, wrote, in the
form of a petition and in the name ol the inhabitants of
Cobequid, to the inhabitants of Beaubassin, asking them
to strike a blow with a view of driving the Rangers from
his parish, after which he promised that his parishioners
should go to Grand Pre and Port Royal and strike suc-
cessive blows at these places. ' It is your brothers,' he
assured them, * who ask you for help ; and we think that
the charity, religion, and union that have alwaj'S existed
between us will constrain you to come and rescue us.'|
Another priest, Daudin, acted so badly that he had to be
suspended from his functions for some time and placed
under arrest.

These samples of the conduct of the priests justified
the suspicion that when war broke out their influence
would be used on the side of the French, it is reasonable
to suppose that the priests did cling to the hope that the
fortunes of war would one day restore Acadia to France.
Even so astute a statesman as Talleyrand believed that
the Canadians would of their own accord return to the
French dominion. § One of the first results of the persis-
tent opposition of the priests to the English dominion
was a resolution come to by the Government not to grant
any unconceded lands to Roman Catholics ; and the de-
portation of the non-jurors, whatever we may now think of

♦ Gov. Mascarene to Sec. of State, Dec. 3, 174a. 1 1

\ Gov. Mascarene to the Lords of Trade, Sept. 22, 1744.

I This piece is not dated, but it was written after the year 1749. Nova Scotia
Archives.

S Essai sur les avantages & retirer de colonies nouvelles dans les circonstances
pr^sentes, an V.

THE yESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER. loi

it, presented itself to the minds of the English as a mea-
sure of stern necessity which offered the only means of
safety and self-protection.*

The future influence of the Jesuits in Canada depends
in a great measure upon their being able to get control
of the education of the young. Several years ago they
formed the design of establishing an university at Mont-
real ; and in order to show the necessity for such an in.
stitution, they found it necessary to undertake to prove
that the University of Laval did its work in an unsatis-
factory way, and did only a small portion of what was
required of it. It desired, they said, to limit the number
of students to one hundred, while they alleged there were
in the Province five or six times that number who were
desirous of obtaining an university education. Large
numbers of these, resident in Montreal, could not or
would not go to Laval. The distance and the expense of
attending it were obstacles in the way ; the teaching was
erroneous in more than one respect. The fury of the
opposition to the teaching of Laval was sometimes car-
ried so far as to describe it as atheisticr'l. Five or six
hundred young Canadians, it was pretended, who desired
an university education, were either deprived of it or driven
to Protestant universities or schools affiliated with them,
where their faith and morals were exposed to terrible
dangers.

Yet Laval, the criminatory argument continued, played
dog in the manger ; what she could not or would not do
herself she debarred the Jesuits from doing. She was a

♦ Abbe Raynal's one-sided account of the treatment the Acadians received frcm
the British Government evidently formed the groundwork of Longfellow's Evange-
line, and Haliburton's History of Nova Scotia failed to reconstruct the facts, partly
because he knew scarcely anything of the archives ot the country whose history he
was writing, and partly because his political success depended on the favour of a con-
stituency in which there were French votes enough to defeat any candidate. What
I have said, without attempting to justify the deportation, will serve to show that the
measure was not resolved upon without great and long-continued provocation.

T02

ROME IN CANADA.

monopolist, an obstructionist, an enemy of progress,
instead of being, as was hoped at her birth, the Sorbonne
of New France.

The Bishop of Montreal was exceedingly anxious to
promote the project of the Jesuits, but he was opposed by
a majority of the Episcopate of the Province, including the
Archbishop ; and, what was worse, his scheme and the
scheme of the Jesuits was twice vetoed at Rome, first in
1862, and afterwards in 1865. At a later period, 1872, the
Bishop of Montreal represented that the opposition of
Rome had ceased ; and though the necessary authority
for the canonical erection of the projected university was
still withheld, it was only withheld from motives of
policy. The President of the Sacred Congregation sug-
gested that much trouble might be avoided if the neces-
sary charter were first obtained from the civil authority,
and he sustained the objection by pointing to the difficul-
ties which had been created by the canonic erection of
the University of Dublin before the Government had
granted a charter. The Bishop of Montreal, after the
refusals he had met at Rome, had asked the President of
the Sacred Congregation to be allowed ' to return to the
charge ; ' and the granting of his request, which really
meant no more than that he was not commanded to forego
his importunity, was tortured by the Jesuits into an assent
to their project. An assent it no doubt implied, but with
conditions, and the problem was to obtain the charter.
To this concession only two of the bishops were favour-
able, those of Montreal and Three Rivers. Against the
opposition of the majority of the bishops and that of the
University of Laval the charter could not be obtained.

If the Jesuits were busy at Montreal, at Three Rivers, at
Rome, the Rector of the University of Laval was not idle ;
he induced a majority of the bishops to pronounce against
the design o^ the Jesuits and the Bishop of Montreal.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

103

The letters in which they did so having been published
by the authorities of Laval, were subjected to violent cri-
ticism, and treated with jeering ridicule and undisguised
contempt by the Jesuits and their fi nds. In re-publish-
ing extracts from them, these hostile critics interjected
long passages in parentheses, much longer than the letters
themselves, containing what they contended the bishops
ought to have said ; a mode, scarcely polite, of saying
that they told not the truth. Let us cite a tew examples.

The Bishop of Ottawa having said : ' I believe, M. Le
Recteur, that you are right, after having made all the
sacrifices which you have not feared to impose upon
yourselves in the past, in asking the Government to see
that your rights are not sacrificed,' the critic* remarks :
' The thing, however, would be difficult, and it would re-
quire all your ability to succeed ; if > our rights are not so
certain and irrefragable that they may not be disregarded,
as I had the honour a he advantage to do when I
obtained an universi ^ charter for my college of Saint
Joseph. I thank you for not having, at that time, put
forward your present pretensions ; not that I should
have been prepared to admit them, for it would have been
easy to prove that other Catholic universities were pos-
sible as well as yours, even at Ottawa, that is in the eccle-
siastical Province of Quebec, but your reclamations would
have caused contestations and disputes, things for which
I have little or no liking.' '

Then the Bishop is allowed to speak in the next sen-
tence of his letter : ' It seems to me that after the sentence
which has been delivered at Rome, and not yet been re-
voked, which maintains the right of the University of
Laval, it is not allowable for good Catholics to oppose,
directly or indirectly, a decision which ought to be res-
pected and followed, at least until it is revoked.' What

♦ La Redaction de Franc-ParUur.

I ■,.||C;

104

ROME IN CANADA.

the bishop ought to have said, according to the cham-
pion of the Jesuits, is : * At least that the thing should not
be regarded, as I believed myself entitled to regard it,
when the university charter for my college of Saint
Joseph was granted, in spite of the sentence of the Holy
See in 1865, without my ceasing on that account to be a
good Catholic ; that is to say, to be able to act thus, that
the Holy See has several times expressed the desire that
the civil power should remove all the difficulties, so that
the Holy See would have no difficulty in permitting what
it had at first deemed inexpedient.'

The Bishop of Rimouski having stated that he should
see with extreme regret ' the rights of the University of
Laval set aside, and the immense sacrifices it had made
rendered useless by the legislative concession to other
institutions, in the Province of Quebec, of the power of
conferring degrees to Catholics,' the Jesuits' champion
interjects, as what the bishop ought to have said : *
' What is essential for your cause, M. Le Recteur, is to
establish your right to exist alone, if I judge by your own
memoirs, which I have under my eyes, and which ir-
refragably establish the contrary, and that in twenty dif-
ferent places ; for example, at page 28 of the memoir of
1862, where you affirm that, contrary to the statement
of the Bishop of Montreal, you have neither asked for
nor obtained a charter for a Provincial university.'
Never, surely, was so weighty an argument hung upon so
slender a peg.

The Bishop proceeded to remar*k that the circumstances
under which Rome had given its decision had not chang-
ed ; whereupon the Jesuits' champion interjects, as what
the Bishop ought to have said : ' Before making use of
this argument, it will be necessary to assure yourself
whether Mgr. of Montreal had not been authorized one
way or another, this circumstance being of a nature to

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER. 105

act as a strong inducement to the Legislature to favour
the creation of an university at Montreal.'

The Jesuits as little respect a decision come to at Rome,
on a controverted question in which they are interested, as
they would a decision of the Legislature refusing them the
charter for which they ask. The Bishop of St. Hyacinthe
had ' no difficulty or hesitation in affirming that the
University of Laval has the right to be maintained in the
position assigned to it by the sentence delivered at Rome.
On which, the champion of the Jesuits remarks that the
Bishop ought to have said : • That, in order to comply
with this condition, you should not confine yourself to of-
fering the establishment of university chairs for Montreal ;
but that you should do so on acceptable conditions, with-
out which the sentence of the Holy See has no longer its
raison d'etre.' ;

The Archbishop of Quebec made two voyages to Rome,
one in 1862, the other in 1864, to sustain the rights of
the University of Laval against the attempts of the
Jesuits practically to supersede it by the establishment of
a university at Montreal. Both parties were heard be-
fore the decrees of the Sacred Congregation were rendered.
' To consider oneself authorized,' said the Archbishop,
* to infringe upon these decrees, before they have been
revoked by the high authority by which they were render-
ed, would be to reverse all the notions of the Catholic
hierarchy.' It would naturally be supposed that such
vehement advocates of the authority of Rome as the
Jesuits and their friends are, on ordinary occasions,
would have accepted this view ofthe Archbishop without
question. On the contrary, he is told that he ought to
have said : ' It is true that the Bishop of Montreal may
have had permission to return to the charge, as he had
after the sentence of 1862, and one could not deny this
possibility without being blind and foolish. To consider

I V

'o6

ROME IN CANADA.

it wouM be „ece4r; ^ tTe' f/tl,' l"-^ ^""^'S-'^^.
Cathol.c hierarchy : for we llT fu ^^ """""^ «' 'he
ofthe Roman ConLiatlsn." ^''^" "'^ P-'^fet

But the Jesuit univershv * ™"''°P '° "PPOse it.'
ever, suppo'se U,at tL p ^^^ ^f X'' , ^e. no one, how-
he question was, ,5ve yeT : '^ -^^'^o.^. At Rome,
the prudence of taking the inTj.it^ T'^ ">"" <""= °f
been obtained from the Ll » ' ." " "^"'^ had
wou'd have found itself de;rvedrf s ^"''"' ^"'"
The sentiment which would nm7,T ^P"" ^t Rome,

t'on for the sacrifices she h''™' ""t of considers-

«.ththeadva„tages whfoh he"? •" '""'''^ '=°"'P"ed
^■n to result frL the realt!,-^""'? '■"^^"^"t as cer-
immense difference betwe „ on!''?" H i*"''" P'""' ^he
>ngan university educltion ^ "^ ""''""'^ ''eeeiv-

enjoyingtheadvLuge ™ o?tr '?^^ "'^' "-"ber
-h.ch produce an uferrW tff , '' ^'"^^ ^^tements .
The alleged fact must be Ire h °\ t' ""^'''^ "''"^■
only a hundred students srkac °'^ *'="°'' ■ ^^ if

b-hle that six times thatTumh '' '° ^'™'' '^ " pro-
an university education The 1"! '■■""°"-' '" °''^^'-
and the Province of Quebec to! """P"'^"™ '= too srnall
oept such a conclusion The? ''°°"' ',° P"™'' "= '» ac-
of Cathohc parents to attend ProT^ "'""""'"^ '^e sons
by a little artful exaggeration t".' ""'^^ities can,
wanting, be made to cff^T muT "' " ""^"-'^ -'
f^S'T^^^^^ bran-ch of the University
Unless the Jesuits were pe 'TJ !" ''"^^ ^"'^'^ee!

B.shop ofMontrea, "otifiid'th^pS, ^ ^^^ ./^^^e

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

107

consent to the establishment of this branch, because
« the bishop would count for nothing) in it.' The Arch-
bishop replied that it was not necessary that the bishop
should interfere in this establishment. But Bishop
Bourget was not to be moved from the position he had
taken, though the opinion of the Archbishop diftered from
his own. From which it is plain that, according to
Bourget, though the Pope hears Christ, and the bishop
hears the Pope, he does not hear or does not heed the
archbishop.

The Bishop of Three Rivers thought the objection
drawn from the decision given at Rome feeble and of lit-
tle account, since he regarded it as certain that neither
the Bishop of Montreal nor the Jesuits intended to erect
a Roman Catholic university without the authorization
of the Holy See. And to prove the strength of his con-
victions and of his sincerity, he refused to attempt to
* induce the Government to beg the Jesuits to withdraw
their demand.' The experience of twenty years con-
vinced him that the University of Laval could not attract
to her a majority of the Roman Catholic youth of the
Province who desire to obtain an university education.
He found that more than three-quarters of those in his
own diocese who desired to enter the liberal professions
pursued their preparatory studies at Montreal. He as-
sumed that, beyond doubt, the objection made at Rome
seven years before had been withdrawn.

The question of the charter remains. The cham-
pion of the Jesuits is of opinion that the Government
must shape its conduct on this question entirely by the
desire of the Cardinal Prefet of the Propaganda ; and
that, knowing his wishes on the subject, it may ' without
tear grant what Montreal demands.' And he adds : 'Let
the members of Parliament choose : on one side are four
letters in flagrant contradiction with the facts in the

xo8

ROME IN CANADA.

cognizance of their authors, and even with the acts of
some of these authors. On the other side are two letters
in perfect accord with the facts, and entirely conformable
to the desires as well as the authorization of the Catlinal
Prefet of the Propaganda ; to good faith, right, justice,
equity, and good sense the choice is not difficult.'

This shows, at least, if nothing else, that the New
School can proclaim, when it suits its purpose, that the
bishops state that which is not. And the remarkable
fact is that, by this mode of attack, they have at length
succeeded in imposing silence on that moderate section of
the Church of Rome on whom they made war. The
Archbishop is told that, for the purpose of producing a
deception at Rome, he disfigured the lacts, and put a
question in a way that was not conformable to the truth.

The Jesuits have taken towards the University ot Laval
the same line of attack with which, two centuries ago,
they crushed Port Royal. The greater part of the young
men who leave that university they have described as
being imbued with very advanced Liberal and Gallican
ideas, which they predict will shortly conduct us all into
an unfathomable abyss. In nothing but name, its accusers
are never tired of repeating, is this university Roman
Catholic. It teaches its students the doctrines tound in
law books which Pius IX. has formally condemned ; and
it is clear that it must continue to do so, because there are
no other works that could supply their place. It is made
a crime in this university that it does not compel the
students to get such glimpses of physical science as might
be possible by looking through the mists of Church
dogma.*

Not till May 15, 1876, did the University of Laval
receive canonic erection. By the bull of Pius IX., the
Archbishop of Quebec is made Rector, and the University

* See La Question de I'UniversiU, par I'Abbu Pelletier.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER. log

obtains a protector at Rome, in the person of the Cardinal
Pretet of the Propaganda ex officio.

In this recognition of Laval, its enemies see no honour.
In the natural order of things, they say, every Catholic
university ought to be canonically erected. Laval has
always been called a Catholic university ; and ' it is abso-
lutely necessary, on account of this title, that Rome should
interfere, and with a firm hand so exercise her authority
as to give this institution a truly official character.' The
latitude which has hitherto been allowed to the teaching
of the professors is abnormal, and must in future be put
an end to. Over one thing, the most hostile of Laval's
critics rejoices : ' Rome no longer fears, as she feared
twenty years ago, to awaken the susceptibilities of Protes-
tant England, by giving canonic erection to a Catholic
university in one of her colonies. 'f

It IS impossible to doubt that, at Rome, the sympathy
is with the Jesuits ; and if the Order met a check in
Quebec, the reason is that it had there scornfully rejected
the counsels of prudence. It requires no small fund of
perversity to enable any one to see a victory for the
Liberal or Gallican element in the canonic erection of
Laval University. The accusations which the Jesuits
had brought against Laval may have created the impres-
sion, at Rome, that the University needed to be kept
better in hand. That this will be the effect of the bull of
May, 1876, does not admit of a reasonable doubt. The
bull places the doctrine taught and the discipline enforced
therein under the surveillance of the Episcopate of the
Province of Quebec. This covers the ground of faith and
morals. In every other respect, the University is to be
regulated by the decision of the Congregation of the Pro-
paganda, February i, 1876. If what the Jesuits attacked
receives from the Pope the balm of an ample measure of

t Abb6 Pelletier, in the Franc-Parlcur, Sept. 8, 1876.

/

no

ROME IN CANADA.

consolation and praise, we must not mistake the meaning
of the fact. In practically taking the direction of the
University, Rome could have no object in proclaiming
that the past had not been satisfactory and that any
great change was going to be made in future. Neverthe-
less the arrows of the Jesuits may not have missed their
mark. Pius IX. extols the sagacity of the professors,
several of whom studied in the Gregorian University of
the Jesuits at Rome, and in the classes of St. Apollinaire;
but he admits that Rome expects from Laval greater
benefits in the future than she has derived in ,the past.
Any desire to derogate from the royal charter, granted
by the Crown of England, is judiciously disclaimed. The
declaied intention to leave the University to govern
itself receives a disturbing commentary from the fact that
the Episcopate of Quebec and the Congregation of the
Propaganda at Rome divide the government between
them.

Immunity from alteration is claimed for all the provi-
sions of this bull. If the legislative authority saw cause
to reject any of its provisions, it would find in advance
that the presumption would ' incur the indignation of
God and of Peter and the Apostles.'

Nothing contained in the bull is to be criticised, com-
batted, infringed upon, withdrawn, demurred to, restricted,
lessened, or derogated from in any particular ; no matter
what necessity the civil Government, to which the right
of establishing educational corporations belongs, might
see for making any change. It is conceivable that the
directions of the Congregation of the Propaganda might
contain something which, on national grounds, it would
be desirable to reject, and which might in fact conflict
with the royal charter ; and then the question would
arise whether the civil Government or a Roman Congre-
gation should win the mastery. The royal charter gave

THE yPSUITS AVD THE CIVIL POWER.

Ill

the University full liberty to govern itself; and though
Pius IX. professes not to desire to derogate from this
privilef^e, it is impossible not to see that the real control
will be in the bishops and the Congregation of the Propa-
ganda. The power of the former will be directory ; that
of the latter will be judicial, and will be exercised as an
original jurisdiction.

When certain general edicts of previous Popes, which
are not enumerated, are made to apply to this University
with the same force as xi they had been cited in the bull at
length, ' anything else to the contrary notwithstanding,'
the suspicion naturally suggests itself whether this may
not be intended to be a fatal arrow shot at the royal
charter. In other cases, we have to deal with the con-
flict oi laws and jurisdictions ; here we flatter ourselves
that the civil law must prevail. Is it possible this may
prove a delusion ?

Twenty years before this bull was issued, M. Louis
Jacques Casault, the first Rector of the University of
Laval, to which a royal charter had then recently been
granted, went to Rome to solicit the favour of canonic erec-
tion. He met with a refusal from the Pope. That refusal
probably had a double motive: a desire to avoid what
might be objected to by the British Government, as the
Rev. Alexis Pelletier avers, though the danger from this
source must have been very small, and a certain doubt may
have hung over an institution which had just accepted a
royal charter from a Protestant Crown. The canonic erec-
tion which was then refused, is granted only after the Pope
has assured himself that several of the professors have
received their education at hands of Jesuit instruc-
tors at Rome. If there be a prospect that Jesuit influ-
ence will become predominant in this seat of learning
within a space of time which it is possible to estimate,
it is easy to see why the decision at Rome agair\st the

1X2

ROME IN CANADA.

establishment of an avowed Jesuit university at Montreal
should have been followed by the canonic erection of
Laval. There were two ways of taking the citadel : one
by assault, which was the plan of the Jesuits ; the other
by gradually introducing into the professors' chairs
teachers educated in hostility to the old order of things.

This is the plan of the Pope, and an attempt is being
made to put it into execution. The Congregation of the
Propaganda may be relied on to do its share of the
work ; and in the Episcopate of Quebec it will find a will-
ing backer. Cardinal Franchi and his official successors
for all time are to adjudicate on all causes that may
arise, in the shape of accusations or otherwise, against the
University ; by which the increasing volume of references
to Rome will be >till further swelled. . .

What the first Bishop of Canada did in this connection
the present Archbishop of Quebec warmly extols. He
was energetic in his endeavours to prevent the introduc-
tion of ' certain propositions ' which the will of Louis
XIV. had imposed upon the French seminaries of learn-
ing. These unspecified propositions were probably the
four articles. He is also credited by the same dignitary
with having compelled the Canadian clergy to accept the
Roman liturgy, which was persistently rejected in France.
He proclaimed, in short, Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia : ' where
Peter is. there is the Church ; ' another form of saying,
* the Pope is the Church.' This is the light which the
Archbishop pledges himself to follow. He guarantees that
Laval will, 'in all things, follow the direction that comes
to her from Rome;'| and that 'she rejects what Rome
condemns, and is always ready to submit her teaching to
that of Rome.' This is what the Pope calls leaving the
University that liberty to govern itself, which it derives
from the royal charter. In the light of these facts, the

X Mandement promulguant la Bulle Inter varias solicitudines, Sept. 13, 1876,

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

"3

refusal of Rome to sanction the erection of a Jesuit uni-
versity at Montreal is intelligible. It does not follow that
the Jesuits will, in the end, be losers by that refusal : on
the contrary, they are morally certain to gain.

When the Archbishop claims for Laval the merit of
having, at all times, maintained a position of strict neu-
trality between different political parties, we do not care
to question his statement. This attitude, he hastens to
assure us, has the approbation of Rome. The Univer-
sity, the Archbishop adds, recognizes in public men the
right of freedom of opinion in all, purely civil matters.
Nevertheless, the bull Inter varias solicitudines, in giving
to the Episcopate of Quebec supreme surveillance over all
questions of faith and morals which may arise in connec-
tion with the institution, extends its jurisdiction over poli-
tics, which even Archbishop Lynch identifies with morals.
The doctrine of intolerance taught by the theological pro-
fessors of Laval, trained in the schools of Rome, cannot
in the long run be without its influence on politics.

The University of Laval has done good service in the
cause of education ; but a turning point in her history has
been reached. In future she will listen only to the voice of
Rome, and her teaching will be more and more an echo
ofthatof the Gregorian University of the Jesuits. Are
we wrong in saying that out of apparent defeat the Jesuits
will know how to evolve substantial victory ?

The Catholic historian Garneau charges the Jesuits
with having desired to make Canada a second Paraguay.
This is a weighty charge, and one against which we do not
think they have been successfully defended. Let us see
what we escaped by their want of success. In Paraguay
the Jesuits appropriated all the products of the labour of
the Indians under their charge in excess of the small
amount necessary for the subsistence of the toilers, which
probably did not exceed in value $50 a year each. The

XX4

ROME IN CANADA.

,

labour of these virtual slaves, whose masters had the
merit of not being brutal and ferocious, has been esti-
mated at $1,500,000 a year ;* but a doubt has been ex-
pressed whether even this sum, large as it is, does not
fall far below the entire profit, mercantile transactions
being added, which the Jesuits made out of these Indians.
The wealth of a single mission, that of San Ignacio Mini,
appears by the official inventory to have been nearly
$27,000,000 ; and of these missions there were not less
than thirty. The Jesuits and the Indians formed a com-
munity, the most extensive experiment m socialism the
world has ever seen ; but the Indians contributed the
labour and the Jesuits took the fruits. The greatest
equality was enforced among the Indians in the matter
of dress ; but it was an equality in which all were alike
bare-footed ; there was an equality of labour, which con-
sisted of unceasing drudgery. The Indians under the
Jesuits were absolutely cut off from all intercourse with
the Spaniards. They lived in mud hovels ; the Jesuits
built palaces and were surrounded by every luxury. The
priests constantly made forced m^vtches between the two
sexes, which led to the greatest indifference between hus-
bands and wives, and parents and children. |

But the day of reckoning was at hand. On the 27th
February, 1767, Charles III. of Spain issued a royal de-
cree, banishing the Jesuits from all his dominions. He
defended the act in a letter to Pope Clement XIII. as
* an essential step of political economy,' taken after care-
ful examination and profound reflection. The Pope re-
monstrated against the expulsion and vindicated the
Jesuits. His Majesty's Extraordinary Council advised
the king that to enter into controversy on the merits of

* J. D. Robertson. Letters on Paraguay.

} Memoria sobre las Missiones, by Don Pedro de Angelis, Buenos Ayres, 18361
an official report.

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER.

"5

the case would be * to incur the most greivous inconveni-
ence of compromising the sovereign prerogative of His
Majesty, who is responsible to God alone for his actions.'
In Paraguay, the Council adds, the Jesuits had taken
the field with organized armies against the Crown, and in
Spain they had attempted to modify the government to
suit their own purposes, and ' to promulgate and put into
practice the most horrible doctrines.' The succeeding
Pope, Clement XIV., not only ratified the decree of expul-
sion, but gave at length, in a brief of forty-one articles
(Sept. 12, 1773), his reasons for approving. In this brief
many weighty charges against the Jesuits were insinuated.

Canada was not, thanks to the vigour of the French
Government, made a second Paraguay; the Jesuits were
not expelled by the civil authorities, but they lost their
property by the natural extinction of the Order. To-day
Canada is fast becoming the paradise of the Jesuits, and
the experiment of what they may be able to do in the
Province of Quebec is now being worked out.

(Jii the occasion of the golden wedding of Bishop Bour-
get of Montreal, the Jesuits in connection with the veteran
prelate resolved to make a demonstration which could
not be otherwise than offensive to many of the ten bishops
and four hundred priests who were present. To perform
the most important part in the ceremonies, tnrce priests
distinguished for their opposition to the late Archbishop
of Quebec were chosen. Two of them who had, on ac-
count of insubordination, been sent from Quebec had
found a ready welcome at the episcopal palace of Mont-
real, and one of them had publicly lectured the Arch-
bishop in the cathedral church. The sermon was )>reached
by the Jesuit priest Braiin, and proved extremely offen-
sive to many who were present.* It was a pulpit mani-
festo of the Jesuits and their allies. This shows how

* Dessaulles.

8

ii6

ROME IN CANADA.

completely the late Bishop of Montreal was in the hands
of the Jesuits.

Loud murmurs of disapprobation followed the preach-
ing of the sermon ; and the dissatisfaction of the mass of
the audience was shared by the Archbishop and the
Bishops of St. Hyacinthe and Ottawa, as well as the Sem-
inarists of St. Sulpice. The protests against the extrava-
gant Ultramontanismof the sermon were echoed by politi-
cians and journalists. I

The Jesuits have always made use of the confessional as
an instrument of power to be wielded so as to bring about
the accomplishment of their own ends. And it would
seem that the Jesuits of Quebec walk in the well-worn
track. We are told, for instance, by M. DessauUes, that
while the Roman Congregations were condemning the In-
stitut Canadien and its little blue covered pamphlet,
Jesuit and other New School confessors were exercising
a terrorism at Montreal which might vie with the Span-
ish Inquisition. Upon wives and mothers they brought
to bear the terrors of the confessional to induce them to
use the influence of their tears and their fears to compel
husbands and brothers to quit thtir connection with the
Institute. Many, as a means of obtaining some measure
of peace in their distracted families, did so. Many who
went away, the same authority informs us, promised still
to remain at heart true members, and freely to give their
subscriptions to the institution they had, in effect, been
compelled to abandon. The latter part of their promise,
it is to be feared, many of them failed to keep.

The Ultramontane journals of Quebec defend the use
of the confessional as a means of extracting from un-
willing breasts secrets v/hich the ballot-box was adopted
as a means of guarding. They argue that the priest,
having directed the elector how to vote, has a right to use

t See Dinan,

THE JESUITS AND THE CIVIL POWER. 117

the confessional to find out whether he has been obedient
and acted according to instructions. If this really be
done to any considerable extent, the fact is probably
traceable to the rapid increase of Jesuit priests. But, ne-
cessarily, the question is one on which it is dif^cult to
obtain evidence. The law respects the secrets of the
confessional ; and this form of undue influence, if it really
exists to any great extent, cannot be made a subject of
judicial enquiry. It is reasonable to infer that a priest
who, from the pulpit, denounces as a mortal sin the voting
for a particular candidate, would not hesitate to ask, in
the confessional, whether that sin had been committed.
In doing so, he would mcur little danger of exposure or
of being called to account for the exertion of undue in-
fluence ; while for the direction openly given in the pulpit,
backed with the menace of spiritual censures, he might be
called upon to answer in the courts, the same as a layman
would be if he had resorted to some other form of undue
influence. But a willing witness might blurt out the fact
that electors are asked in the confessional how they voted,
as was done in the Bonaventure election contest. The
practice is therefore proved to exist ; and it is probably
due to the audacity and exertions of the Jesuits.

1x8

ROME IN CANADA.

VI.

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

If the Ultramontanes Cv^uld show that the conquest of
Canada by England had the effect of aboHshing, in the
conquered country, the whole body of the common ec-
clesiastical law of France, and substituting the canon law
of Rome in its place, they would have made an immense
step towards the subordination of the civil authority.
Hence Pagnuelo's contention that that event completely
changed the relations which previously existed between
the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities.

We may allow, with Wheaton, that a conquest has the
effect of changing the political system previously in force
in the conquered country ; with Lord Mansfield, that the
laws, especially the municipal law, which in such case
previously existed, remain in force till they are changed
by the conqueror ; with Marshall, that on the cessation of
the relations with their old government, the inhabitants
enter into new relations with their new masters ; with Lord
Stowell, that a part of the ancient laws is inevitably re-
placed by the cliange of government, and even that ' the
administration of justice in the person of the sovereign,
and the appellant jurisdictions and whatever concerns the
sovereign authority, must undergo alterations conform-
able to the change ; ' but this would not prove that the
whole body of the common ecclesiastical law of France,
on which the French colonists had, up to that date, re-
lied {or the protection of their rights and their interests,
was ",*. ''.;«■ '. ix.Lt; swept away.

r : <: lestion is not whether the relations between the

THE ANGLO-GALLIC AN THEORY.

119

Roman Catholic Church of Canada and the King could
continue to exist, by an act of transference, alter the
conquest, but whether the common ecclesiastical law of
France, which formed the guide of the civil tribunals
previous to 1760, still continued to be in force. Before
M. Pagnuelo can answer the question in the negative, he
must be prepared to show that the tribunals have system-
atically taken a mistaken view of their obligations, their
functions, and their duties. He must show that dignitar-
ies of the Church as well as judges have been in error on
this point. He must refute the opinion which Mgr.
Dtstautelst has expressed in a very confident tone. ' We
cannot doubt,' says that ecclesiastic, ' that the common
ecclesiastical law, which was that of France before the
cession of Canada to England, is the special ecclesiastical
law of Canada. Indeed,' he adds, ' the arret of the King's
Council of State creating the Superior Council of Quebec
gives to tliis Council the power to decide absolutely and
in the last resort, according to the customs of the King-
dom of France.'

Chief Justice Lafontame judicially expressed the same
opinion, in i86o;§ but it is an opinion which requires
such modification as is implied by the frequent alteration
of the laws affecting the Church of Rome.

Between France and the Church of Rome there was
no doubt a sympathy which could not exist between a
Protestant nation and the Roman Catholic Church : but
besides this what more was there ? The check which the
French Government exercised over the French Church,
as a means of maintaining the independence of the secular
power, was political. When it nominated bishops, it

t Manuel des cun'S, 1864. This ecclesiastic, a Canadian, owes his title of Monseig-
neur to the fact of his having been named secret honorary chaplain to Pius IX.,
thoi!gh he resides in Canada. Abbe C. Tanguay, Repertoire General du Clerg6 Can-
adien.

S L. C. Jurist.

I i

1 20

ROME IN CANADA.

did so to prevent a foreign court exercising an influence
which might prove dangerous to its own security. When
it provided secular courts to correct the abuses of the ec-
clesiastical tribunals, the object was to protect its subjects.
When Frontenac threatened to send the Jesuit priests to
prison for attempting, in their sermons, to weaken the
authority of the king, ol which the governor was the de-
pository, he could not have derived the right to do so from
the fact that France was a Catholic government. This
right, whenever and in whatever manner it was applied,
was the right of self-defence and self-preservation ; a
right which is necessarily Jaherent in all governments,
whatever be their complexion.

The penal laws of England regarding Roman Catholics
happily did not extend to Canada. This opinion was
given by the Crown law officers in 1765, Sir Fletcher
Norton, Attorney-General, and Sir Wm. de Grey, Solici-
tor-General. Three years later, the Advocate-General
and the other two Crown law officers reiterated this opin-
ion. In 1774, Lord Notth had expressed the same opinion
in the House of Commons. Whetherthebishop'sjurisdic-
tion ought to be abolished he regarded as another ques-
tion. * I cannot conceive,' he said, ' that its presence is
essential to the free exercise of religion ; but I am sure
that no bishop will be there under Papal authority, because
he will see that Great Britain will not permit any Papal
authority in the country.' It was expressly forbidden in
the Act of Supremacy.

Six leading universities of Europe, in Roman Catholic
countries, in reply to three questions put by Pitt, in 1789,
denied that the Pope had any authority, direct or indirect,
over the temporal power and jurisdiction of foreign princes
and States ;* and this was probablj- one of the causes

* I, ' Has the Pope or cardinals, or any Dody of men, or any individuals in the Cnurch
of Rome, any civil authority, power, jurisdiction, or pre-eminence whatsoever, within

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

121

which led Lord North to assure the House of Commons
that no bishop, acting under Papal authority, would be
allowed to exercise his functions in Canada.

The puzzle was to know from whom the bishop
was to receive authority to discharge the duties of his
office. Solicitor-General Wedderburn pointed out that
no ecclesiastic could derive authority from the See oi
Rome without directly offending against the Act of Supre-
macy.f Attorney-General Dunning held that the rights and
dues secured to the clergy related to the maintenance which
they had possessed before the conquest, and did not extend
to their ecclesiastical functions. Fox could not compre-
hend on what principle the priest could be entitled to
tithes. Their right to tithes was not, as Bishop Bourget
erroneously states, J agreed to on the capitulation of the
country ; on the contrary, the answer given by General
Amherst to this demand was that this was a matter
which must depend on the pleasure of the king. That
pleasure was never exercised till 1774, when the Quebec
Act was passed ; during the preceding eleven years there
had, according to Maseres, been no legal authority to
collect tithes, and he states that, as a rule, they were not
collected. § This right is derived from the Quebec Act.
Some writers contend, we are aware, that the authority
to collect tithes is derived from the French law which
was in force when the country was ceded to England. ||
But at the time of the capitulation the question of tithes

the realm of England? II. Can the Pope or cardinals, or any individual in the
Church of Rome, absolve or dispense his majesty's subjects from their oath of alleg-
iance, upon any pretext whatsoever ? III. Is there any principle in the tenets of the
Roman Catholic faith, by which Catholics are justified in not keeping faith with
heretics, or other persons differing from them in religious opinions, in any transac
tion either of a public or a private nature ? "

t Cavendish's Debates. t

X Lettre Pastorale, 31 Mai, 1838.

§ Canadian Freeholder. ' ,

11 Montigny, Histoiredu Droit Canadien.

122

ROME IN CANADA.

was specially reserved by the British negotiator. After
the conquest, and before the Quebec Act was passed, the
law officers of the Crown delivered an opinion that the
obligation to pay tithes remained in hill vigour, and that
those who had the legal right to demand them could
exact them not less from Protestants than from Koipan
Catholics. If this opinion had been beyond dispute, the
authority of the Quebec Act would not have been required
for the collection of tithes. If, on the other hand, Pro-
testants had been under an obligation to pay tithes to the
Roman Catholic Church, the Quebec Act would have
given them relief, since it confined the right of the Roman
Catholics to collect tithes to their own flocks.

The question whether the British monarch, a Protest-
ant sovereign, succeeded to the rights of France in the
nomination of bishops is one that has been much debated.
But there is no doiibt as to wh.it the practice was from
the time of the conquest to the war of 1812. Immediate-
ly after the treaty of peace, the British Government
formed the resolution to allow the chapter of Quebec to
elect the bishop ; but Governor-General Murray, enjoy-
ing, it may be presumed, special opportunities of acquir-
ing knowledge by his presence in the colony, raised ob-
jections. The chapter proceeded to make the election
privately, without the consent of the Governor.* The

♦ This was a return to the practice in vogue in the elective bishoprics of France
in early times. The canons of the cathedral churches, the abbes, and the heads of
the collegiate and conventual churches, the cur6s of the episcopal city and the rural
deans of the diocese, the chief dean of the chapter of the cathedral church, who presid-
ed on the occasion, caused to be made of an uniform shape and appearance as many
ballot papers as there were persons present, on each of which were written the words,
' You are an elector.' Among the ballots, to be drawn by lot from a bag, there were only
nine which gave the right of nominating the candidates for election, and the drawers
of these prizes became the nominators of candidates. The nine nominators separated
into three divisions, and if two of the divisions did not make the same choice, lots
were again drawn, and the winner obtained the right of nomination. After the final
vote of the three divisions, and when each division had named aloud the person of its
choice, the whole body of electors proceeded to elect a bishop from among the per-
sons nominated. Each elector had the choice of open or secret voting; he could

THE ANQLO -GALLIC AN THEORY.

123

choice fell on M. Montgolfier, Superior of the Seminary
of Montreal.

M. Montgolfier, deputed by the French clergy of Can-
ada, went to the Court of London, in the hope of bring-
ing it to some agreement on questions such as that which
General Murray had raised. The Government agreed
that M. Montgolfier should become Bishop of Canada,
but only on the condition that he should be placed on the
same footing as the Roman Catholic Bishops of London
and Dublin ; that he should assume no other mark of
dignity than that of Superior of the Seminary ot Mont-
real ; and that the ecclesiastics who formed the chapter
of the Seminary should in no way be distinguished from
the other members of their community.

The Government imposed another condition, and one
which proved fatal to M. Montgolfier's chances of being
allowed to fill the office ot bishop : he was required to
present himself before the Governor of Canada and ob-
tain his consent to the arrangement. The English
Government feared that, if M. Montgolfier were allowed
to become bishop contrary to the wishes of the Governor-
General, trouble and divisions would ensue. To the re-
fusal of his assent, Murray added the demand that Mont-
golfier should cease to exercise the functions of General-
Vicar, and that the chapter should proceed to a new elec-
tion. He even named Olivier Briand as the person on
whom he was desirous the choice should fall. This ad-
vice was taken, and at the second election, Sept. 11, 1764,
M. Briand obtained the suffrage of the chapter.

either give aloud the name of his favourite candidate, or write it on a slip oi paper
which appears to have been handed to the secretary of the chapter. A plurality vote
was sufficient to elect; and if an equal number of votes was cast for three different
persons the Metropolitan, to whom the facts were reported, made a choice of one of
them. Bishops were sometimes elected by the clergy, and sometimes by the clergy
in conjunction with the temporal authority. Even in Spain, bishops have at times
been chosen by the king. — See Coquille. Mimoires pour la Ri/ormation de I'Etat
EccUsiastiques.

124

ROME IN CANADA.

r

When the Bishop-elect arrived in London, with letters
of recommendation from the Governor-General, he found
that a difficulty had been put in his way by a letter
which Abbf Lacorne had sent from Quebec, and in which
he undertook to show the inutility of a bishop in Canada.
At first, the Government refused to accept M. Briand ;
and it was only after repeated solicitations on his part
that he obtained the necessary recognition.""

In a memorial which he presented to the Court of Lon-
don, Abb() Lacorne had represented that the way to at-
tach Canadians to the Government was to make them
Protestants. This was not to be done by force, but by
leaving them without priests. Though the law officers
had twice given the opinion that the penal laws did not
extend to Canada, there were difficulties in the way of
permitting the consecration of a Roman Catholic bishop.
Indirectly the Government gave M. Briand to understand
that if he received his bulls, they would allow the cir-
cumstance to be passed over without notice. M. Briand
therefore went to France, where he received his bulls,
March i6, 1766, and was consecrated by the Bishop of
Blois.*

The new bishop now set out for his diocese, to give a
practical contradiction of Lord North's assurance, which
was only two years old, ' that no bishop would be there
under Papal authority,' because 'Great Britain would
not permit any Papal authority in the country.'

An attempt to compel the priests to take the oath of
allegiance which had been made almost immediately
alter the conquest, under a threat of deportation, had
failed. Under the French regime the Canadian bishops,
as we have seen, had been required to take an oath of
fidelity to the Crown. Though this requirement must be

♦ M. Faillon. Vie de Mme. De Youville,
-f Abb6 Ferland, Histoire du Canada.

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

125

more necessary where the bishop is ot foreign birth, the
value of the oath would be greatly lessened by the pre-
vious obligation whicli he must have come under, to help,
defend, and keep the Papal authority and the royalties
of St. Peter against all men, sovereigns and subjects; to
endeavour to preserve, defend, increase, and advance the
rights, honours, privileges, and authority of the Holy
Roman Church, of their lord the Pope and his succes-
sors ; to observe and cause others to observe the apostolic
decrees, ordinances, reservations, provisions, and man-
dates.:J: This formula, which was formerly, and probably
still is, used by the Irish bishops, differed in some res-
pects from tiiat used by the Italian bisliops at the epoch
of the Council of Trent. § The latter could nqt take part
in any deliberation which might be construed to be con-
trary to the authority of the Pope. The bishop who has
taken such an oath to the Pope as either of these, can-
not afterwards take an oath of fidelity to another sove-
reign without equivocation or mental reservation.

The election of bishops by the chapter was a form of
proceeding not destined to be continued. The practice
came to be that the bishop, with the consent of the repre-
sentative ol the sovereign in the Province, named the
coadjutor with the right of succession, and the Court of
Rome issued the necessary bulls. In these days, the
Court of Rome made no objection to this arrangement,
but on the contrary, approved of it, on several occasions. ||

On the i6th March, 1768, Cardinal Castelli, Prefet of
the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, wrote to the
Bishop : ' It is the wish of the Pope that you should ask
a coadjutor, provided the English do not oppose any

: Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXVIII.

§ Bungener, History of the Council of Trent.

H Abbe Ferland. Observations sur un ouvrage intitule Histoire dti Canadn, par M»
I'Abbe Brasseurde Bourbourg.

^

126

ROME IN CANADA.

obstacle thereto ; ' which was the same as saying that
the opposition of the Government would be fatal to the
proposal. But in this, as in many other matters, there
were always to be found people more Catholic than the
Pope. M. Briand, says Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg,*
when told of the authority claimed for the British Crown
in the nomination of bishops, ought to have said that the
French king has never possessed the right attributed to
him except by the favour of the Holy See, and that it
was not a right which could be transferred to a non-
Catholic sovereign.

Two years later, Bishop Briand besought the Papal
Nuncio at Paris to ask M. D'Esgly for coadjutor ; at the
same time informing him that the choice had been agreed
to by the Government. The presentation thus made was
accepted by the Court of Rome, and the Cardinal after-
wards thanked the Bishop for having so managed the
matter that the appointment had been made without any
encroachment upon the rights and authority of the Apos-
tolic See.

The elections of the bishops by the chapter would pro-
bably hq,ve been the best solution of a question which
presented many difficulties. There are conceivable cases
in which the right of the Crown to concur in, or to veto,
the choice, might almost be a political necessity. The
unchecked nomination of bishops by the Crown, judged
by its fruits where it has been tried, was far from being an
unmixed good. The selections were often made from
motives to which religion is a stranger. Political services,
and at some periods and in some countries services of a
shameless character, were rewarded by the bestowal of a
bishopric ; and the vicious qualities which had won the
incongruous reward continued in active vigour, to the
ficandal of the Church and religion. The richer the

* Histoire du Canada, de son ^glise, et de ses missions.

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

127

benefice, the greater the means of indulging in a dissolute
voluptuousness, the greater the scandal. While the
bishop wallowed in wealth, of which he made so ill an use.
the simple clerk was a mendicant. The daughter, says
the proverb, suffocated the mother ; the piety of the
Church loaded her with riches, and the riches smothered
the piety. But this state of things did not exist in
Canada.

The appointment of cures by the Government was fre-
quently resisted by the bishops ; though the Royal Instruc-
tions formerly required that no Roman Catholic eccle-
siastic should exercise hi,s functions without a license
from the Government. M. Briand, who had submitted
to the conditions imposed on the occasion of his own
appointment, said to the Governor : ' I would rather sub-
mit to the loss of my head, than accord you the permission,
ot nominating to a single cure.' ^

The instructions of the Governors, whether thcv were
strictly carried out or not, at least show the aim uf the
Imperial Government, and what it consideied t(j be its
duty. These instructions contained things wliich it is
impossible now to approve; and others wliich, though
they had a harsh look, may not have been wholly unne-
cessary.

The instructions of Governor Murray forbade the
exercise of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome in the
colony. Those of Sir George Prevost, dated 1775, may
be taken as the affirmation of a policy which was not
formally abandoned for more than half a century. They
show what were the relations which it was the avowed
policy of England to establish towards the Roman
Catholic Church ; and they are therefore^worth examining
somewhat in detail.

Though the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion
had been guarded by the stipulations contained in the

X38

ROME IN CANADA.

capitulation of Montreal and the Treaty of Cession, the
instructions explained, * that it is a toleration of the free
exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome to which
they are entitled, but not to the powers and privileges of
it as an Established Church, that being a preference which
only belongs to the Protestant Church of England.' The
supremacy of the Crown in all matters, ecclesiastical as
well as civil, was asserted. Appeals to a correspondence
with any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, of what nature
or kind soever, were absolutely forbidden under severe
penalties. No episcopal or vicarial power was to be
exercised in the Province ' by any person professing the
religion of the Church of Rome, but only such as are
indispensably and indisputably necessary to the free exer-
cise of the Romish religion ; ' and even this was not to be
exercised without permission from the Governor under
the great seal. No person was to have holy orders con-
ferred upon him, or to have the care of souls, without a
license from the Governor. No person professing the
religion of the Church of Rome was to be allowed to fill
any ecclesiastical benefice, or to enjoy any of the rights
or profits belonging thereto, who was not a Canadian by
birth ; such only excepted as already filled benefices or
might be appointed thereto by the authority of the Crown ;
and all right, or claim of right, in any other person than
the sovereign or his representative, to appoint to any
benefice was absolutely prohibited, the rights of lay patrons
being reserved.

No Roman Catholic was to be appointed incumbent of
any parish in which the majority of the inhabitants might
solicit the appointment of a Protestant ; and in that case
the incumbent was to be a Protestant minister, and the
Roman Catholics might have the use of the church at
such time as would not interfere with the worship of the
Protestants ; in exchange for which privilege, the Pro-

:!

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

139

testant inhabitants of any parish where the majority of
parishioners were Roman Catholics, were to have the free
use of the church at such time as might not interfere with
the worship of the Roman Catholics.

For some time the clergymen ot the Church of England,
in the conquered colony, were appointed by the Crown.
And these instructions contain a claim on the part of the
Crown to appoint Roman Catholic priests ; lor they for-
bade anyone else besides the sovereign or his representa-
tive to claim a right to appoint incumbents. Where the
majority of the parishioners were Protestants, even the
Crown had not the power to appoint a Roman Catholic
incumbent, but the tolerated Roman Catholic minority
was to have the use of the public churches at convenient
times ; and the Roman Catholic churches were to be so
far treated as public property that the Crown could
authorize Protestants to use them at times not inconven-
ient to their owners. Anglican control of the Church,
in its different branches, was intended to go beyond the
utmost extent of Gallican pretensions. But, in practice,
it soon fell far short not only ot the claims made in these
instructions, but of the rules which the Government had
enforced under the French dominion.

Every Roman Catholic ecclesiastic in possession of a
benefice was required to take an oath of fidelity to the
sovereign ;t an oath which was substituted for that of
supremacy and allegiance. All incumbents of parishes
professing the religion of Rome, and not being under the

t The oath was in these terms ; ' I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, that I
will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George, and will de-
fend him to the utmost of my power against all traitorous conspiracies, and attempts
whatsoever, which shall be made against his person, crown, and dignity, and that I
will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty, his heirs
and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies and attempts which I shall
know 10 be against him, or any of them ; and all tnis do I swear without any equivo-
cation, mental evasion, or secret reservation, and renouncing all pardons and dispen-
sations from any power or persons whomsoever to the contrary, so help me Goq.'
14 Geo. Ill, Cap 83.

'.'t

130

ROME IN CANADA.

ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec, were
to hold their benefices during good behaviour, but any
conviction for crime, or proof of seditious attempts to
disturb the peace, was to vacate the benefice. Any such
ecclesiastic who might marry was to be released from the
penalties which such a step might subject him to by the
authority of the See of Rome. It is a curious fact, in view
of the Guibord c 9 se, that freedom of the burial of the dead
in churches and church-yards v;as to be allowed indiscri-
mniately to every religious persuasion. The Royal Family
was to be prayed for in all churches and places of public
worship,* and the royal arms were to be put up therein.
The guarantee that the priests vho were not under the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec should
hold tlieir benefices during good behaviour, would, it en-
forced, have contributed to their independence and weak-
ened the episcopal authority. The restriction of this
rule to such priests as were not under the Bishop of
Quebec must have gone far to nullify it altogether, for
it is difficult to understand who were the priests who were
not under his jurisdiction previous to the creation of the
bishopric of Montreal. The Government went very far
when it undertook to stand between the wrath of Rome
and any priest who should renounce his obligations of
celibacy and enter into the marriage state. Few changes
made by the Reformation gave such offence to Roman
Catholics as the marriage of the clergy ; ..nd now the
offer was made to Canadian priests, that if they chose to
marry, the British Government would shield them from
the ecclesiastical penalties which they might incur Tor
doing so. It is difficult to see how this could be done ; and
I have seen no evidence that the Government was ever
called upon to carry this guarantee into effect.

♦ This practice wcis till recently kept up in the diocese of Montreal, by order of the
Bishop, but it had become entirely voluntary ; and I am not aware of its having been
discontinued.

THE ANGLO-GALLIC AN THEORY.

131

There were also instructions regarding the receipt of
tithes by Protestant and Roman Catholic ecclesiastics.
Acting 01; the recommendation of Governor Simcoe, the
British Government formed the design of supporting the
Church of England in Canada by means of tithes ; but
it was soon discovered that the levying of tithes could
not be made acceptable to an English colony in America,
and the attempt had to be abandoned. The Church of
Rome, which it was intended only to tolerate, while the
Church of England should be established, retains its
tithes, though those of the Church of England were aban-
doned before the end of the last century. The same
fate has not befallen the landed endowments of the two
Churches : the spirit of the age caused the secularization
of the clergy reserves, set apart for the maintenance of a
Protestant clergy ; while the Church of Rome, with the
exception of the Jesuits' estates, and a few other small
parcels which fell into the possession of the Crown, re-
tains its extensive territorial possessions.

The more stringent clauses of the Governor's instruc-
tions gradually came to be disregarded ; and though spas-
modic attempts were from time to time made by the
British Government, or its representative in the colony, to
recover the leeway which had been made, they had very
little practical result, and the Church of Rome was en-
abled in time to shake itself free from that supremacy to
which it had been intended to subject it. Forty years
after the conquest the Duke of Portland sent out instruc-
tions to the Local Government to resume the authority
in virtue of which no one was to have holy orders conferred
upon him., or be entrusted with the care of souls, with-
out a license from the Governor. No means by which
this object could be attained were to be left untried. If the
Roman Catholic bishop could be brought to a yielding
temper by an addition to his worldly comforts, the British
9

132

ROME IN CANADA.

mt

I a

Government was willing to increase his allowance ' almost
to any extent.' The Roman Catholic clergy had, at this
time, become accountable to their bishop alone, and that
clergy, to augment its own influence, discouraged the
education of the people.* To prevent the Bishop becoming
more powerlul than the Government, the Duke of Port-
land was willing to rer'.^ r>c an authority which had already
fallen into disuse, and t > bring him to terms by an addi-
tion to his income.

Four years later an interview took place, at the sugges-
tion of the Governor, between the Rev. M. Plessis, coad-
jutor, and Attorney-Gone: ai Sewell, in which a desire of
coming to an accomn. jda.ion \va£ admitted on the part of
the Government. Mr. Sewei' oaid he had authority from
the Governor to state his private opinion on the subject.
'It is highly necessary '■^•' /ou,' r '■ aid to M. Plessis,
'to have the means of prot^cLini; v-jl.^ ^"-"urch ; to the
Government to have a good understanding with the minis-
ters of a religion which it has acknowledged and estab-
lished by the Quebec Act, and at the same time essential
to have them under its control. The Governor having
permitted the free exercise of the Roman Catholic reli-
gion, ought, he thought, to avow its officers, but not at
the expense of the king's rights or of the Established
Church; you cannot expect,' M. Sewell told the bishop,
'nor ever obtain, anything that is inconsistent with the
rights of the Crown ; nor can the Government ever allow
to you what it denies to the Church of England.' But in
this he was mistaken.

M. Plessis admitted that this position mif^ht be correct,
and he saw no objection to the bishop acting under the
king's commission. The Attorney-General claimed that
submission to the king's authority, on all mixed as well
as temporal questions, was essential. The Crown would

* Sir R. S. Milnes to the Duke of Portland, Quebec, 18 Feb., 1801.

i

S

THE ANGLOGALLICAN THEORY.

Z33

never consent to give up its power ; the bishop's right to
appoint cures could not be admitted, for it was one which
the Church of England did not possess. Under the ist
of Elizabeth, which the Quebec Act had extended to
Canada— but happily no persecutions followed in its train —
the bishop was without power. But, objected M. Plessis,
the claim was practically that the king skould collate
to every benefice, whereas the King of France had
collated only to consistorial offices, not to cures. This
statement was too wide to express the truth, for there
were many cures to which the French king was collator.
But then, pursued M. Plessis, the bishop ought not to be
obliged to give a reason for refusing to induct the priests
so presented.

On this point the Attorney-General and the bishop
did not agree, any more than on that of the remova-
bility of the cures ; Mr. Sewell contending tliat a rector
was removable only for misconduct. He was willing to
allow ' that the Government ought, in policy, to give the
bishop a jurisdiction over his clergy ; subject always to
the controlhng power of the King's Bench, and to the
operation of the writ of prohibition and an appeal, to which
the Courts of the Bishops in England are subject.'

And now the Attorney-General reached the seductive
part of his argument : ' The Government,' he said, ' ac-
knowledging your religion, and avowing its officers to be
officers of the Crown, should provide for them as for all
others. The bishop should have enough to enable him
to live in a splendour suitable to his rank ; and the coad-
jutor also in proportion.' To do him justice, M. Plessis
had performed his share in leading up to this proposal, by
remarking that Bishop Denaud was livnig in a state of
' poverty, holding a living, and acting as parish priest, in
direct contradiction to the canons.' The offer to raise
the bishop from this condition to one of splendour, and

134

ROME IN CANADA.

the coadjutor to a condition of relative splendour, caused
the latter to remark, that though he did not wish to see
the bishop living in splendour, he desired to see him treed
Irom the pressure of want. The Attorney-General hav-
ing explained that he only meant that the bishop's income
should be that of a gentleman, M. Plessis acknowledged
that they both meant the same thing.

But there were difficulties in the way ; if the relinquish-
ment ot the bishop's right to nominate to the cures, were
coincident with the receipt of a pension, a scandal-loving
public would not hesitate to say that he had sold the
Church. As for public clamour, the Attorney-General
saw that that could not be stopped ; and as for relinquish-
ing a right, there was none to relinquish. ' Surely this is
a sufficient answer to any vulgar declamation against a
bishop who makes terms highly advantageous for his
church, and must be satisfactory to himself.' On so deli-
cate a point, M. Plessis could not presume to speak for his
ecclesiastical superior. Hesitatingly he said, * I do not
know ; it is his affair.'

There was no time to be lost ; the opportunity might
never occur again. ' There is one idea,' said the Attorney-
General impressively, and with a slight flavour of menace,
* which I wish to suggest ; that if you ever mean to fix
the officers of your Church upon any footing, this is the
moment. The present Lieutenant-Governor is a gentleman
of most liberal principles ; he has been long enough in
the country to know all that relates to it, and is well dis-
posed to serve you ; he is on the point of going to Eng-
land, where this matter must be settled.' On this point
the interlocutors fell into complete accord : ' I am well
aware of all this;' M. Plessis agreed, * whatever is to be
done must be done now.'

At eight o'clock in the morning the Attorney-General
would expect M. Plessis to breakfast. * You may,' frankly
replied M. Plessis, ' something must be done.'

THE ANGLO-GALLIC AN THEORY.

135

A little more than three months alter this remarkable
interview, M. Denaud petitioned the king to cause him
to be civilljr recognized as Roman Catholic Bishop of
Quebec, with 'such prerogatives, rights, and temporal
emoluments as your majesty may be graciously pleased
to attach to this dignity.' The petitioner stated that
neither he who had been at the head of the Church in
Lower Canada tor eight years, nor his predecessors since
the conquest, nor the cures of the parishes, had received
from the king the special authorization of which they often
felt the want, to prevent doubts on questions which might
come up for adjudication in the courts touching the ex-
ercise of their civil functions. The bishops had however,
he said, always taken the oath of allegiance and exercised
their functions, with the permission of the sovereign, under
different governors. But the day was coming when no
more such oaths would betaken.

Mr. Ryland, in a letter to the Earl of Spencer, May 10,
1813, speaks of Denaud having offered to the Crown the
patronage of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps, he
concluded, or may have known it to be a fact, that
Denaud was willing, in consideration of having his official
position recognized by the Government and an annual
salary paid out of the Imperial Treasury, to surrender the
patronage of the cures. If this be so, the interview be-
tween Coadjutor Plessis and Attorney-General Sewell,
followed by the eight o'clock breakfast, had not been in
vain. But Denauddied before any arrangement was com-
pleted.

When M. Plessis passes through the chrysalis state of
coadjutor and becomes bishop, we shall see him take the
shilling.* Nine months after this conversation, Bishop
Denaud died ; and Mr. Ryland ran to the Attorney-Gen-

♦ This interview, reported bv Attorney-General Sewell himself, is given at length
in Christie's History of Canada.

(.

136

ROME IN CANADA.

eral, and wrote to the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, and
brought that functionary's powers of persuasion to bear
on Mr. President Dunn, * to dissuade him from a formal
acknowledgment of M. Plessis, as Superintendent of the
Romish Church, till His Majesty's pleasure respecting
that situation shall be declared.' But the President had
decided that on the morrow, Jan. 27, 1806, M. Plessis
should be admitted to take the oaths in Council. The
negotiations ot the previous year had not yet matured in -
to an agreement ; and Mr. President Dunn excited much
criticism by his resolution formally to acknowledge M.
Plessis as Bishop ot Quebec. Mr. Ryland thought it
would greatly tend to promote the views of the Govern-
ment if an assistant superintendent were sent out from
England, and a French emigrant bishop of approved loy- .
alty could be found, who would accept on the terms
offered by the Government.

But President Dunn went farther. Without awaiting for
instructions from home, he allowed M. Panet to take the
oath as coadjutor. The Anglican Bishop of Quebec was
greatly scandalized ; he had in his possession an affidavit,
in which the brother of the new coadjutor was said to have
declared at the door of the church of Charlebourg, that if
he could get M. Berthelot elected to the Legislative As-
sembly, ' they would trample the English under their
feet' {'Us fouleraie)it les Anglais sous les pieds'). Who could
tell what might not be done when the whole patronage
ot the Romish Church in the Province would be wielded
by the brother of one who uttered this contingent
threat ?

A few months later. Sir James Craig was Governor of
Lower Canada. Mr. Ryland, who had tried so hard, and
without effect, to impress his views on President Dunn,
had greater success with the new Governor. The ques-
tion which they conjointly undertook to resolve was, in

THE ANGLO-OALLICAN THEORY.

»37

what way the Crown could most successfully assume the
patronage of the Roman Catholic Church. Having hit
upon a plan, Mr. Tlyland, who had gone to England, un-
folded it in a letter to Peel, then under Secretary of State.
The plan was that the Governor should receive instruc-
tions from England to inform M. Plessis, that His Majes-
ty was disposed to accede to the petition of the late Rev. M.
Denaud, by granting the Roman Catholic bishop recog-
nition in the King's Courts, and letters patent appointing
him Superintendent of the Roman Catholic Church of
Lower Canada, with a* salary suitable to the dignity and
importance of the office; and that letters of induction or
confirmation would be granted by His Majesty to the
cures, in the same manner as they were issued in favour
of the clergy of the Established Church, without which
they had no legal title to the privileges and emoluments
of their respective cures.

Meanwhile, the new bishop issued a mandement which
the Governorsent home as a proof of the position of com-
plete independence which that ecclesiastic had assumed.
In this mandement, M. Plessis styled himself, 'by the
grace of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Quebec' Ry-
land raised the question, whether the bishop, by circulat-
ing the mandement, and assuming the title and authori-
ties therein set forth, did not render himselt liable to a
criminal prosecution.

Peel referred to the law officers of the Crown the ques-
tion whether, under the Quebec Act, the king had a
legal right to assume and exercise the patronage ot the
Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, m the manner
prescribed by the royal instructions ; and also asked them
to take into account the question raised by Mr. Ryland,
with respect to the powers exercised by the Roman
Catholic bishop.

The law officers, Robinson, Gibbs, and Plumer, gave it

, i|

138

ROME IN CANADA.

1

as their opinion 'that so much of the patronage of Roman
Catholic benefices as was exercised by the bishop under
the French Government, is now vested in His Majesty.' If
the right be supposed to have originated with the Pope»
the same consequence would result from the extinction
of the Papal authority in a British Province. But the
notion that the Papal authority was extinguished in Can-
ada was already a delusion.

The Governor was impressed by the suspicion that the
Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland, with whomthecorres-
pondence was being carried on, would instigate Plessis lo re-
fuse to acknowledge the king's supremacy. * The priests,'
Craig wrote in a letter to Ryland, ' certainly do their en-
deavours to estrange the people more and more Irom us.'
Thus it was always more or less a question of allegiance.

The writers who contend that while the four articles
were not registered by the Superior Council of Quebec,
neither were Galilean doctrines introduced into the
country,* overstate the fact. It may be true, as M.
Garneau remarks, that the contentions which arose in
France regarding the franchises of the Galilean Church
had less Interest for the scattered population on the banks
of the St. Lawrence; but he admits that M. de Vlller-
maule, M.Thlbaut, and M. Glandelet, deanofthechapter
of Quebec, accepted the doctrines of the author of the
Lettn's Proviiiciales. M. Oscar Dunn is correct in saying
that, after the conquest, the French Canadians naturally
gravitated more than ever towards Rome, as they had no
longer any motive for making common cause with the
secular power to form a national Church. Having to deal
with a Protestant power, they only gave it half their con-
fidence ; and ' to-day,' this writer boasts, ' we are per-
haps of all peoples that which Is in the strictest commun-
ion with Rome; there is not to be found the least restric-

♦ Oscar Dunn. Introduction de I'interement civil en Canada,

THE ANGLO OALLIC AN THEORY.

139

tion nor the least ambiguity in the acts of faith and sol-
emn submission of our Provincial Councils.' In our day,
the fullest liberty has been granted to the Roman Catho-
lics, with no grudging spirit ; and now the time has come
when that Church claims supremacy over the State, and,
theoretically at least, denies the right of any otherChurch
even to toleration. So lar from the Papal authority being
extinguished in Canada, it claims the first place, and in-
sists on the subordination of the State.

The civil courts, under the French dominion, constant-
ly restrained the abuse ol ecclesiastical authority. Simi-
lar restraints can still be enforced ; though the Church of
Rome in Quebec has never, at any time, made the same
efforts to break loose from them that she is making
to-day.

Abbe Ferland has printed a conversation between
Bishop Plessis and Governor Craig, which the 'ormer
committed to paper immediately after it had taken place.
He had not hesitated, in 1812, to ask the Government to
authorize him officially to assume the titlf of Bishop of
Quebec. In respect to the appointment ti ures, he had,
even when secretary to Bishop Hubert, ^ombatted the
claim of the Crown. Falling under the suspicion of the
Government, he was looked on as a man whom it would
be prudent to keep at arm's length. Prince Edward wrote
from Halifax to General Prescott, Oct. 16, 1797: 'As
to the coadjutor, M. Plessis, I think it my duty to inform
you that he is not a man in whom it would be prudent to
repose too great a degree of confidence. I have known
him since he was secretary to Bishop Hubert ; and it was
perfectly well known, during my residence in Canada,
that he controlled both the bishop and the Seminary, and
induced them to adopt opinions which were incompatible
with those we maintained regarding the supremacy oi
the king in ecclesiastical affairs.'

Z40

ROME IN CANADA.

Bishop Denaut had consented to send to the Governor
a list of nominations to cures, and the fact being reported
to Prince Edward, the latter in another letter stated that,
during his residence in Car ada, M. Plessis had always
influenced the bishop to refuse to submit to such nomi-
nations. * M. Plessis,' the Prince adds, 'could not be
considered otherwise than as occupying a doubttul posi-
tion regarding his loyalty towards Great Britain.' In
the interview with Craig, the bishop took the ground that,
as father of the family, it was for him to send workmen
into the field. The Governor replied that if the bishop
denied the royal prerogative on this point, he must refuse
to discuss the matter further with him ; adding that the
bishop's refusal of institution would not prevent the
priests appointed in the name of the king from being
maintained in their positions. The bishop contended
that they would be unable to fulfil their spiritual func-
tions. The Governor made a remark which shows that,
in several respects, the royal instructions had been
departed from ; and he said he was liable to be called
to account and put upon his trial for neglect of
duty in this particular. Another remark seems to show
that none of the priests then filling charges had been
appointed by the Government ; otherwise it is difficult to
see why not one of them could have maintained an action
for the recovery of tithes, unless it were that they did not
hold their cures by a title which made them irremovea-
ble except for crime. And now the bishop threw out

sly menace : the Government, he said, had, since the
conquest, left his predecessors at full liberty to rule the
Church, and they had therein found a motive to be zealous
for the interest of the Government ; the inference being
that a different policy would have a contrary effect.

The dispute waxed warm, and things calculated to
irritate were said on both sides. The Governor reminded

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

141

the bishop that under the capitulation of Montreal he had
a right to no more than a toleration of his religion. The
bishop professed himself the most devoted of His
Majesty's subjects ; but in matters of spiritual supremacy
every Catholic must bow to the chief of the Church, not
to the Parliament of England. When the conversation
ended, the bishop and the Governor were as far apart as
they had been at the beginning.*

No claim was yet made that the bishops could exercise
anything but a spiritual authority over their dioceses.
Sir George Prevost, who succeeded Craig in the Governor-
ship, asked the bishop on what footing it would be con-
venient to put the Roman Catholic bishops in future. The
reply was that their spiritual power ought to come from
the Sovereign Pontiff; but he did not plead that they
should be authorized to enter upon their sees without the
consent of the Government; on the contrary, he admitted
that, as the spiritual functions have certain exterior and
civil effects, it was reasonable that bishops should, for
that purpose, be required to obtain the consent of the
Government-
Tic; new Governor took the same ground as his prede-
cessor. But, on the breaking out of the American war,
the cures exerted themselves in raising the militia ; and
the bishop, exercising the power which circular letters
and mandements gave him, prudence suggested that he
was too important an ally of the Government to allow
the contest begun by Craig to be continued. ' I have to
inform you,' wrote Lord Bathurst, 'that His Royal High-
ness, the Prince Regent, in the name of His Majesty,
desires that hereafter the allowance of the Catholic
Bishop of Quebec be one thousand pounds per annum,
as a testimony rendered to the loyalty and good conduct
of the gentleman who now occupies that place, as well as

*Ferland. Obs.

142

ROME IN CANADA.

of the other members of the Catholic clergy of the
Province.'

Every embarrassment into which the British Govern-
ment fell was felt to be the opportunity of the Roman
Catholic ecclesiastics. In turning the war of 1 8 1 2 to account,
Bishop Plessis was only following in the footsteps of a
predecessor, who had extracted advantages from the French
revolution. The British Government had strenuously
insisted on a practical adherence to that part of the royal
instructions which forbade foreign ecclesiastics to exercise
their functions in Canada. The bishops pressed for a
relaxation of this rule, the more vigorously because, after
the suppression of the Jesuits and the Recollets, it was
very difficult to obtain an adequate supply of priests.
For thirty years their efforts failed of success. The French
revolution produced between the French priests and the
British Government a common feeling : both found them-
selves in opposition to the new order of things. More
than thirty of the priests who left France readily got
passports from the British Government to go to Canada;
and there was thereafter no attempt to revive a prohi-
bition that had once, for special reasons, been removed.*

Almost immediately after the title of Bishop Plessis
had been recognized and he had obtained an allowance
of one thousand pounds a year, the Colonial Secretary
leplied to a complaintof the Anglican bishop regardingthe
anomalous recognition of two titulars in the same diocese,
that ' whatever opinions may be entertained with respect
to the adoption of measures for restraining the Catholic
Church in the Province or reducing its lately acquired
superiority,' the present was no time for bringing forward
changes. t

The objection that the demand of the Anglican bishop

♦ Tanguay, Rep. -Gen.

t Ferland. Vie de Mgr. Plessis.

THE ANOLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

143

was inopportune was founded on the existence of the
American war. On the arrival of General Craig as
Governor, it had been doubtful whether the Roman
Catholic bishop would be allowed any higher title than
that of Ecclesiastical Superintendent for the affairs of
the Church of Rome in Lower Canada. The breaking
out of the war solved the difficulty, to the advantage of
the Church ; and to the full recognition of the title was
now added a gratuity of a thousand pounds a year to
Bishop Plessis. Lord John Russell was afterwards, as
Colonial Secretary, to send to Canada a dispatch order-
ing tiie qualifying word 'lord' to be put before that of
bishop. By this act, the veteran statesman earned a
doubtful title to figure before the world as the author of
the Durham letter.

Of the instructions so long given to Canadian Governors
some clauses were reasonable and necessary, while others
seem to trench, in some degree, on the free exercise of
the religion of Rome which had been protected by inter-
national guarantees. But the spirit of the times when
the penal laws of Elizabeth were in full force in England
is not to be judged by the standards of to-day. It is
greatly to be wished that the mad policy of the Ultra-
montanes of Quebec may not be carried to an extent
which may render necessary the revival of some of the
guarantees which gradually fell out of use.

The Church of England has been disestablished, and if
there be an established Church in the country, it is the
Church of Rome. The declaration in the preamble of the
Act secularizing the clergy reserves, that all connection
between Church and State ought to be abolished, is one
the assertion of which would now bring down anathema
on the head of any member of the Church of Rome in
Quebec.

The extent of the pressure which the bishops may be

144

ROME IN CANADA.

able to put on the inferior clergy must depend, in a great
measure, upon whether the latter be fixed in their cures for
life, or removable at the pleasure of their ecclesiastical
superiors. Whether they are legally removable is a ques-
tion which has been much contested. Sir L. H. Lafon-
taine, as an advocate, argued with great force in favour
of immovability ;* and the fact of his afterwards publishing
his plaidoyer seems to prove that he felt a personal inter-
est in propagating that view : as a judge, he is said not
to have adhered to that opinion.

The decision, in the case of Nau against Bishop
Lartigue, went off on a side issue, and determines nothing
for or against the immovability of the cures who are ap-
pointed otherwise than by simple letters of mission. An
arret of 1679 confines the right to receive tithes and
other oblations entirely to cures appointed for life ; but
those who wish to augment the power of the bishops,
argue that a law which has been disregarded for nearly
two centuries has become a dead letter. Bishop Lar-
tigue, in a memorial published anonymously, laid down
certain rules, the observance of which was necessary to
cover the cure with the protection of immovability. f
Previous to presentation to a benefice the priest must
undergo an examination before the bishop. Two months
after the appointment he must, in accordance with the
Council of Trent — which, by the way, in a matter of dis-
cipline, such as this is, was never accepted in Canada
during the French dominion — and the civil ordinances,
make the profession of faith of Pius IV. The bishop
must state, in the instrument of appointment, in what
quality he has the power to appoint , in the case of suc-
cession to an immovable cure in what way the vacancy
occurred : whether by death, resignation, or otherwise.

♦ Notes sur rinamovibilite des cures dans le Bas-Canada, 1837.
-f Memoire sur I'amovibilite des cures en Canada, 1S37.

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

145

The secretary of the diocese, or, in his absence, two other
witnesses, must attest the execution of the instrument.

All these formalities. Bishop Lartigue contended, were
necessary to be observed to make a priest irremovable
under the law. The bishop, by neglecting these observ-
ances, and making the appointment by a simple letter,
could evade the law. That is the argument of Bishop
Lartigue, and his practice in the contested case was in
accord with it. The usual mode of appointing cures
came in time to be by a letter in which the bishop states
that the appointment is revocable at his pleasure or that
ol his successor.* It was reserved for the English domin-
ion to witness the complete success of the attempt of the
bishops to overthrow the salutary principle of the irre-
movability of the cures. But if, by resort to the artifice of
evasion for a long period of time, the law can be made a
dead letter, what becomes of the provision tliat tithes are
to be paid only to cures having a life tenure of their bene-
fices ? The Gallicans had a maxim that there was no
prescription against the public good ; but Gallicanism is
now more than ever rebellion against Rome.

IfthecuruNau had lived in the year of grace 1877,
he could not have appealed to the Court of Queen's Bench
without incurring ecclesiastical censure. The Bishops of
Quebec, Nov. 14, 1875, in ajoint circular assume to take
away the right which M. Nau was at full liberty to exer-
cise, and did exercise, in 1838. The bishops go back to a
Council where they find it defined, that if a clerk or reli-
gious person cites another clerk or religious person
before a civil court, he incurs the censures pro-
nounced by the ecclesiastical law ; not the ancient ec-
clesiastical law of France, but the ecclesiastical law of
Rome. They find that the Propaganda has denounced

* Droit administiatif ou Manuel des Paroieses et Fabriques. Par Hector L.
Lungevin, avocat.

Z46

ROME IN CANADA.

,|| !

I

the same penalties for the same offence. The bishops
then add : ' strictly ecclesiastical causes are those in
which the defendant is an ecclesiastic or a religious per-
son, or the object in litigation is a spiritual thing, or con-
nected with the exercise of some function of the ministry.*
But does it follow that the civil liberties of ecclesiastics
can be taken away by circular letters without their con-
sent ? The Privy Council, in a recent case, seemed to
imply that if an ecclesiastical encroachment be not resist-
ed, it may come in time to have the force of law.

In the light of these facts, we may form some estimate
of the influence that may be wielded by eight bishops in
the Province of Quebec, acting upon orders from Rome,
and transmitting them to one thousand and forty-two
priests, three hundred and fifty ecclesiastics, and one hun-
dred and fifty-one convents.* The number of priests had
increased in one year forty-three, of ecclesiastics ten, of
convents seven.

When Mgr. Plessis (1821), Bishop of Quebec, conse-
crated M. Lartigue Bishop of Telmesse, in partihus in-
fideliimi, and informed the clergy and their flocks in the
district of Montreal that they must henceforth apply to
the new bishop for dispensations, ordinations, etc., some
of the Gallican clergy of that district contended that,
though there might be bulls of the Pope which had not
been published conferring the benefice, the appointment
would not be valid without the consent of the King of
England, who, b]^ the Treaty of Cession, had succeeded
to the rights of the King of France with regard to the
erection of bishopries.! M. Chaboillez argued that it was
the interest of Catholics that jiothing should be done in
the way of innovation to diminish the favourable disposi-

♦ Rolland et fils. Almanach Agricole Commercial et Historique, Montreal, 1877.

t M. Chaboillez, Cur6 of Longueuil. Questions sur le Government Ecclesiastiques
du District de Montreal.

THE ANGLO-GALLICAN THEORY.

147

tion of the Government towards the Catholic reUgion ;
and that no step could be more calculated to excite the
jealousy of the Government than to pretend to erect a
bishopric in a country belonging to England without the
consent of the sovereign. Unless the new bishop were
recognized by the civil power, his authority, and even his
quality, might be contested in the tribunals. Another
reason why the consent of the king should be obtained
was, that such an establishment was comprised in the
edict of mortmain. It was an ecclesiastical establish-
ment : an arrondisscinent was lormed, to which it was pro-
posed to appoint a superior, assign him a territory, and
give him subjects to govern. On his part there must be
rights, and on that of his inferiors obligations, in civil as
well as in spiritual concerns. The edict of 1743 showed
that such an establishment, call it a bishopric or an epis-
copal district, could not, any more than the College oi
Nicolet, have a legal existence unless it were authorized
by letters patent of the king. French canonists had in-
sisted on the necessity of a bishop being commissioned
by the king as well as the Pope. M. Chaboillez pointed
to an early Council, held at Paris, which had pronounced
null the erection of a bishopric without the consent of the
clergy and the people, who were interested in it.

Three lawyers, Jos. Bedard, B. Beaubien, and M.
O. Sullivan, staked their professional reputation on the
statement that the position taken by thecureofLongueuil
was entirely conformable to the civil and canon law of
Lower Canada. M. P. H. Bedard denied that these
gentlemen were well versed in the canon law ; but it did
not admit of question that they were constantly called
upon to plead causes in which the ecclesiastical law of
France might have a partial application.

To M. Chaboillez's pamphlet three replies were made;
and the controversy may be regarded as one of the early
10

f>C

Z48

ROME IN CANADA.

contests between the Ultramontanes and the Galileans
in Canada. In opposition to M. Chaboillez, it was con-
tended that the Pope has the absolute power ol erecting
bishoprics and appointing bishops. To his contention
that the ancient ecclesiastical laws of France were still in
force in Canada, his opponents replied that the nomina-
tion and institution of Canadian bishops, as well as the
mode of receiving the decrees of the Holy See in this
country, had become as foreign to the canon laws of
France as to those of Poland or Hungary.*

The priest who took this ground boasted that the eccle-
siastical power in Canada was gradually changing its posi-
tion towards the civil Government ; that the bishop
under whose administration they were living had, by pur-
suing a wise and prudent policy, ' obtained more favours
from the Government than any one of his predecessors
had been able to get.' He admitted that when a new
bishopric was erected in France, the bulls of the Popes
continued to state that the act was done with the consent
of the clergy and the people ; but this, he argued, went
for nothing, since the Galilean liberties would deny them
registration by Parliament without this piece of harm-
less condescension on the part of the Court of Rome.

But a lawyer who defended the creation of the bishop-
ric of Montreal by the sole authority of the Pope, M. P.
H. Bedard, did not venture to assume that the case was
one in which the consent of the Crown was not necessary.
He denied that there was anything to prove that the con-
sent of the king had not in fact been obtained ;t and the
Bishop of Quebec had statedj that he had done nothing
except in concert with His Majesty's ministers. M. Be-
dard did, however, in general terms, extend the authority

♦ Observations sur un Ecrit intitule Questions sur le Government Ecclesiastique
du District de Montreal. Par un PretrR du Diocese de Quebec.
i R^ponse de Messire Chaboillez, Cure de Longueuil, k la lettre de P. H. Bedard,
I Mandement, 5 Decembre, 1822.

THE ANGLO-GALUCAN THEORY.

M9

of the Papal power nearly as far as the New School now
assert the right to carry it. ' We are,' he said, • united
by our obedience to the chief of the Universal Church, to
the diocesan bishop, the prelate whom the Sovereign Pon-
tiff has specially commissioned to govern us. " Orders,"
says Saint Augustine, " have come to us from the Apostolic
See; the cause is finished.'" This writer, who had a re-
putation to make at the bar, did not deny that the eccle-
siastical law of France was in force in Canada. There
was a suspicion that he had not written the pamphlet
himself, and that Bishop Lartigue had had some hand in it.
It was a question between the ecclesiastical law of
France and the canon law of Rome : that the principles
of the former had been applied in Canada is beyond doubt.
The edict of May, 1679, concerning tithes and the fixity
of the cur6s, says that means were to be taken according
to the canonical forms to ascertain the convenience or
inconvenience of the proposed regulations. And after
all interested had been heard, the facts were to be re-
ported to the Bishop of Quebec and the king, ' m order
that suitable regulations may be made conformably to
the laws and the usages of the Church of the kingdom.*
The judgments of the Superior Council were conformable
to this requirement. An arret of July i, 1695, ordered
the Vicar-General and Sieur Dudougt at once to remit
to the Council the titles of their pretended ecclesi-
astical jurisdiction ; an arret of June 30, 1693, accorded
to the dean, canons, and chapter of Quebec relief against
an ordinance of the Bishop of Quebec which assigned to
the grand-chantre in future the installation of the canons ;
an arret of June 30, 1750, gave relief to the chapter of
Quebec against an abuse of ecclesiastical power ; and an
arret of October 16, 1750, confirmed Le Sieur Recher in
possession of the cure of Quebec. In all these cases, and
many others, a lay tribunal decided matters which on&

130

ROME IN CANADA.

party regarded as purely ecclesiastical ; and the clergy, far
from denying the jurisdiction, had recourse to it them-
selves to secure their own rights.*

The victory on the argument remained with the parish
priest of Longueuil ; Lut Ultramontanism had shown
what it was in future to attempt. In point of fact, the
judges of the Court of Queen's Bench adjudicated upon
all this class of questions : questions of tithes, of the
concession of seats in the church, the affairs of the Fab-
rique, and a thousand others. Some years previous to
the erection of the bishopric of Montreal, the Bishop of
Quebec had appealed to the ecclesiastical law of France
in support of his claims in a question between himself
and the Government.

A large number of priests in the district of Quebec
openly sustained the views ot M. Chaboillez. The Galil-
eans of Quebec were only to be finally silenced after the
publication of the Vatican Decrees.

The quality of priest m Quebec only detracts from
the rights of the citizen in one particular: the priest
can vote at parliamentary elections, and is eligible for elec-
tion either to the House of Commons or to the Legisla-
ture of the Province, but he cannot be elected a munici-
pal councillor. He is exempt from military and militia
service, and from serving on juries. He can be elected
school commissioner without the ordinary qualification.
He enjoys his tithes in virtue of an Act of the British
Parliament. He is entitled to the fixed emoluments aris-
ing from the celebration of masses for the repose of souls,
from foundations and other casual revenues, which are
supposed to be fixed by the bishops, but which are not
always uniform in amount. It is his duty to read, after
divine service, any proclamation or act which the Gover-
nor may require him to read. It is his duty to keep a

* R^ponse de Messire Chaboillez, Cur6 de Longueuil, & la lettre de P. H. Bidard,
suivie de quelques remarques sur les observations imprim^es aux Trois-Rivi^ra.

THE ANOLO-OALUCAN THEORY.

i5t

civil register ol baptisms, marriages, and burials, also the
register of the deliberations of the parish and of the Fab-
rique, and to give extracts from the same when required,
which are prima facie evidence in a court of law. He
has the right, which is not accorded to the euros in France,
of presiding at the general assemblies of the Fabrique ;
a right which has been secured to him by Act of the Cana-
dian Parliament. He presides over general meetings of
the parishioners, held lor any purpose in connection with
the administration of the affairs of the Church. He also
presides over the meetings of the marguilliers, whose
duties resemble those of churchwardens. Without his
consent the Fabrique cannot accept any foundation. The
parishioners are legally required to provide a suitable
dwelling or presbytery for the cure. It is usual for the
bishop to prescribe the dimensions of the house in which
the priest is to be lodged, but there is no legal authority
for his intervention ; and the commissioners charged with
the erection of the building are not bound to follow the
bishop's directions. Any extensive repairs that may be
required have to be made by the parishioners. The cure
has the exceptional right of sepulchre under the choir of
the church, even in cities where all other intramural inter-
ments are forbidden.*

In a twofold character, the cure is amenable to the civil
courts of Superior Jurisdiction. As president of the Fa-
brique and of meetings of the parishioners, he is regarded
as a public functionary, and as such, can be compelled by
mandamus to perform the duties that are obligatory on
him in that capacity. He is an officer of a religious
corporation, and over all corporations,- civil and ec-
clesiastical, the Superior Court has jurisdiction, f A

• Le (Canadian) cure est le pouvoir inconteste, le magistral Bupremu Ue I'endroit.
Tous les membres de la socidte subissent docilement son contrule. — I. Gutirard. La.
France Canadienne, Paris 1877.

f Code des Cures, par L'Hon. J. U. Baudry.

! I'

1

»!•

ROME IN CANADA.

priest who performs the ceremony of marriage to which
one of the parlies is a minor, without the consent of his
or her parent, is liable to damages in favour of those par-
ents whose authority he has disregarded ; and equally so
if he performs the ceremony without the consent of the
girl's parents, and without publication of banns, though
he be able to plead the dispensation of his bishop. So
the Court of Appeal has decided.* In the presence of a
notary, or three witnesses, the cure can draft the will of
any one residing in his parish, but only on condition that
it contains no bequest to himself or any of his rela-
tives. The witnesses must not be women, members
of religious orders, or novices. The will so drafted be-
comes attainted with nullity if not deposited with a notary
immediately after the death of the testator. There does
not appear to be anything to prevent a will, drafted by a
priest, and made in favour of the Church, conveying real
estate, provided it does not sin against the laws of mortmain.
The Anglo-Gallican policy was destined to fail. It was
impossible to make a national Church out of a religion
which the nation had renounced. Control, even in matters
of discipline, of an alien religion meant repression, against
which the instinct of a conquered nationality, into the
very texture of which the religion of Rome was inter-
woven,would rebel. If the discipline of Rome was distasteful
to the Gallicans, could Anglican discipline have been
made generally acceptable to them ? Whatever danger
there is in the present attitude of Rome towards the
civil power, greater evils would have arisen from the Gov-
ernment having the absolute control of the patronage of
two Churches — the Church of England and the Church of
Rome — in its hands. But the danger that now confronts
us, arising out of the claim of the Church of Rome to a con-
trolling voice in civil affairs, through the election of those
by whom the laws are made, is real and urgent.

* H. F. Langevin. Droit admin.

VII.»
THE PROGRAMME.

On the approach of the elections lor the House of Com-
mons in 1871, the Programme Catholiqiie* offered a very
positive direction to Roman CathoHc voters. Yet, except
an extract it contained from a pastoral letter of the Bishop
of Three Rivers, it was not a document which had the
force of ecclesiastical authority. It came into the world
without a sponsor ; it went about like a literary waif, and
was apparently invested with no more importance than
usually attaches to an anonymous newspaper article of
the * campaign ' order, mtended to influence the future
of an election. But somehow men did attach to it an
unusual importance. It carried with it proof that a new
element in political elections had presented itself; and
that henceforth the Church of Rome was to aim at poli-
tical control. Before long, candidates of both parties
were toj surrender themselves captive to the concealed
authors of the Programme.

The pastoral letter in question formed the text of the
Programme. On it the authors of the Programme built
as on a corner-stone. The bishop had reminded the
electors that the representatives to be elected were
charged to protect and defend the religious interests of the
lectors, in accordance with the spirit of the Church, as
a means of promoting and protecting their temporal
mterests. The civil laws, he said, were necessarily in
accord with religion on a great number of points. As a
mere matter of prudence, the electors were to assure

♦ First published in Le Journal des Troii Rivieres, April ao, 1870.

XS4

ROME IN CANADA.

themselves that the candidate to whom they gave their
suffrages was duly qualified in both respects, and that he
offered, morally speaking, every guarantee for the protec-
tion of these grave interests. The full liberty which the
Constitution accorded to the Catholic worship in Canada
enabled it to be carried on conformably to the rules of
the Church. By a judicious choice of legislators, the
electors would ensure the preservation of this right, the
most precious of all, which gave the bishops ' the im-
mense advantage of being able to govern the Church of
Canada according to the immediate prescriptions and
directions of the Holy See and the Church of Rome, the
mother and mistress of all the Churches.'

There was nothing very startling in this, beyond the
bare fact that the Bishop of Three Rivers desired that
the Church of Rome should use its influence to sway the
elections in its own interests. But nothing was said in
favour of one political policy or against another: no
individual candidates were pointed out for approval or
condemnation ; much less was there any hint of a resort
to spiritual censures to coerce the will of reluctant voters.
But there was in the pastoral enough to build a Pro-
gramme upon. The authors of the Programme took the
ground, that so close is the connection between politics
and religion that the separation of Church and State — to
which the Legislature had committed itself a quarter of a
century before — was ' an absurd and impious doctrine ; '
and especially was this true under the constitutional
regime, under which Parliament exercises the whole
power of legislation, and which places in the hands
of those of whom Parliament is composed a double-
edged weapon, of which a terrible use could be
made. For this reason it was necessary that those to
whose hands the legislative power is committed ' should
be in perfect accord with the teachings of the Church.'

THE PROGRAMME.

155

For this reason it was the duty of Catholic electors to se-
lect for their representatives men whose principles are
perfectly sound and certain. • Full and entire adhesion
to Roman Catholic doctrines in religion, in politics, and
in social economy, ought,' continued the authors of ^e Pro-
gramme, * to be the first and principal qualification which
the Catholic electors should require from the candidate.'
By observing this rule, they would best be able to judge
of men and things.

It was necessary, the Programmists went on to say, 'to
consider the circumstances in which the country is placed,
existing political parties and their antecedents,' The
writers belonged to what they considered the Conservative
party, the defenders of social authority ; * a group of men
professing sincerely the same principles of religion, patriot-
ism, and nationality ; ' inviolably attached to Catholic doc-
trines and manifesting an absolute devotion to the national
interests of Lower Canada. Besides this, a decided pre-
ference for the political party which goes under the name
of Conservative was avowed. But the support to be given
to this party was ' to be subordinated to the interests of
religion,' of which the electors were never to lose sight.
If the laws contained aught which placed Catholic inter-
ests in peril, a pledge was to be exacted from the candidate
that he would do what he could to remove the defect.
The laws relating to marriage, education, the erection of
parishes and the registres de Vetat civil — the register of
baptisms, marriages, and burials which the cures are by
law required to keep — derogated from the rights of the
Church, interfered with its liberty and put difficulties in
the way of its administration, or was capable of a hostile
interpretation. ' This state of things,' the Programmists
boldly averred, 'imposes on Catholic legislators the duty
of changing and modifying these laws, in the way in
which our Lords the Bishops of the Province demand.

1
I-

•IS :■

156

ROME IN CANADA.

to the end that they may be put into harmony with the
doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.' The electors
were told that they ought to require from the candidates
a pledge to this effect as a condition of receiving their
support. ; * It is the duty,' the Programme asserted in so
many words, * of the electors to give their votes only to
those who are willing to conform entirely to the teachings
of the Church in these matters.'

Where there were two Conservative candidates, or two
Liberal candidates, that one which would accept these
conditions was to be preferred. As between a Conserva-
tive and ' an adept of the Liberal School,' the former was
always to be preferred ; except where the Liberal accept-
ed, and the Conservative rejected, the Programme, and
in that case abstention from voting was recommended.

However objectionable the Programme might be, there
was nothing in it which any number of persons wishing
to produce an influence on the elections had not a right to
resort to. But as a first essay, a tentative movement, it
went to the utmost verge of prudence. The influence of
the Programme belonged to the order of moral coercion.
It carried terror with it as it passed from journal to jour-
nal, and gained conquests, on either hand, from timidity in
the prospect of defeat. Next year, a step far in advance
of the Programme was to be taken.

•

VIII.
THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

The first war in which the army of writers journalists,
pamphleteers, authors of comedies, anti-Gallican trea-
tises and sermons, who acknowledged Bishop Bourget
as commander-in-chief, was domestic : it was waged
against all who refused, at once, submissively to accept
the extreme doctrines of the New School; against the
Sulpicians of Montreal, the late Archbishop of Quebec,
and Vicar-General Cazeau ; agamst Vicar-General Ray-
mond, and all others who were susnected of the heresy
of Gallicanism or Catholic liberalism.

In this army, the figure of one of the captains, who con-
sented to lead the torlorn hope, attracts special attention.
Alphonse Villeneuve scorns all danger, and contemptuous-
ly refuses to listen to the voice of discretion. He addresses
Pius IX. as the 'infallible Pontiff and the supreme king
of Christian kingdoms.' After bestowing a fulsome eulogy
on the Pope, he proceeds to lead the onslaught on the
Sulpicians. His soul, he tells the Holy Father, is deso-
lated with a great desolation, because in the holy place,
the Church of Montreal, the abomination of Gallicanism
has appeared. The Sulpicians have become the unhappy
victims of a diabolical illusion, and have implanted the
germs of a schism which he cannot better designate than
by comparing it to Cainism. Half a century ago, the
peace of the Church was broken by the Sulpicians. The
Levites were the first Catholics who attempted to free
themselves from religious authority. They refused to re-
cognize Bishop Lartigue, and tried to induce the Protos-

1

■1.

? '

X58

ROME IN CANADA.

tant Government to deprive him of his powers. They con-
tended that his nomination was null, because the Pope, in
instituting him, had violated the holy canons ; * as if the
infallible Pope was not above the canons.' Because the
Bishop of Montreal insisted on dividing that city into a
number of parishes, contrary to the civil laws as expound-
ed by the best =«"thorities, the Sulpicians committed the
sin of refusing to aid his operations, and had the temerity
to appeal to the Pope against the act ; ' as if,' says Ville-
neuve, ' the Syllabus did not condemn a like pretension ;
in case of legal conflict between the two powers, the civil
law ought to prevail.'

Then follows a catalogue of the crimes of the Sulpicians,
who contended that : without the intervention of the
bishops, the Superior of the Seminary could authorize
Sulpicians to preach, hear confessions, absolve reserved
cases, go beyond the limits of their diocese, name priests
to the care of souls, at the Lake ol Two Mountains, and
do a number of other similar things. When the Bishop
of Montreal insisted on depriving them of a part of their
income, they were charged with the crime of having been
guilty of calling him a robber. Their dislike of the bishop's
encouragement of the Jesuits is set down as the jealousy
of Cain. They are charged with having recourse to lying
and false pretext. When the bishop threatened them
with spoliation, they attempted to induce the Fabrique
of Montreal to commit the crime of taking the cause be-
fore the civil tribunals. After being guilty of the scandal
of defending their property, they committed the additional
enormity of declaring themselves innocent.

In appealing to Rome, the Sulpicians might have seen
that they made a mistake : the Pope was ( tain to side
with the bishop.* The good main, says their calumniator,

* In his reply, Sept. 24, 1867, the Pope said :
rtgtre Ecclcsian Dei.

' Posu Episcop et non Sulpicianos

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

159

found it iirpossible to respect the Sulpicians. In their
service, he adds, a school of able men had been found,
* deserters and renegades to our traditions, who in politics,
in the magistrature, and in the press, emit the accursed
principles of ancient Gallicanism.' The writer finds a
striking similitude b'^tween Cain and the Sulpicians, be-
tween the sin of the one and the crime of the other. The
Sulpicians, another count reads, ruin the ecclesiastical
authority, and assist in submitting the spouse of Christ
to the secular arm.

The writers of the New School determined on an open
attack, and tried to persuade the public that they were
combatting bad faith and the lying Gallicanism of the
Sulpicians and their partisans. The contest must be
carried on in the arena of public opinion, a contest which
they determined to pursue with a savagery which, Ville-
neuve confesses, did not well become the character of a
priest, but to which, nevertheless, he did not scruple to
resort. In this battle he admits the episcopate and the
clergy appeared like men exercising a stroke of vengeance.

Before commencing the onset, Villeneuve confesses
that he hesitated and waited ; but as no one appeared to
lead the attack, he opened fire * upon the fortress of
Saint Sulpice, the refuge of Gallicanism and Catholic
Liberalism.' If his book took the form of comedy, it was
that he might laugh down the satanic illusion under which
these errors flourished. Our author makes it a new crime
in the Sulpicians that, according to him^ they did not
allow themselves to be calumniated with impunity, but
the gives no proof of their having made any reply.

Before the appointment of M. Lartigue to a somewhat
anomalous position in the episcopacy the Sulpicians had
had pretty much their own way. The disciplinary arm
of the Bishop of Quebec was almost too short to reach
them, and they scarcely felt his authority at all. M.

i6o

ROME IN CANADA.

Lartiguegave early indications that he intended to govern
the ecclesiastics of the district of Montreal ; and the
Sulpicians seem to have felt his presence to be an intru-
sion. Still, they did nothing to occasion an open rupture.
They did not even encourage the independent attack
which M. Chaboillez made on his appointment ; on the
contrary, they induced him to refrain from publishing his
first pamphlet a whole year alter it had been written,
The Seminary was rich, and the new Suffragan Auxiliary
was poor. His friends contended that the Sulpicians
should have made a provision for him ; they exaggerated
his poverty and privations, with a view of exciting odium
against the Sulpicians. They told many similar stories
to the disadvantage of the rich corporation, such as
refusing to provide M. Musard the means, which he did
not himself possess, of making a voyage to Europe, on
which his medical advisers said his life depended. In
reply to his application, the Superior is represented
as having said to his suffering brother : ' My dear sir, it
is better to die in this manner than to go against the rules
of the House.' At the same time, other members of the
Seminary are represented as being allowed to spend large
sums on voyages to Europe.

The Semmary is charged with having refused to build
a church in the Faubourg Quebec, or to announce a col-
lection which the bishop desired to have taken up lor the
erection of the church of St. James'. The friends of the
bishop were uneasy because he could not control a part
of the revenues of the Sulpicians ; and the latter is repre-
sented as having stated that the bishop desired to have
half the income derived from their estates handed over to
him. Sometimes matters were carried to an extremity
that caused the partisans of the bishop to represent that
the danger of a schism was imminent. Now and then a
Sulpician priest did ally himself with the bishop, and

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

i6i

against his own order. If he was ambitious he was not
without motives for taking that course, for it was the only
one that could lead to bishoprics and other high digni-
ties. Twelve Sulpicians are reported to have left the
Seminary in a few years preceding that of 1847.

As the members of the Seminary continued to be
recruited trom the Sulpicians of Paris, the corporation
was attacked on national grounds. It was pretended that
it had not become acclimatized, had not taken root in the
soil. The necessity of prohibiting the importation of
additional French priests was often insisted upon. The
prohibition, which had some time before been made by the
Bishop of Quebec, looked to a return to the policy on
which, during the lifetime of a whole generation after the
conquest, the British Government had, for other and
national reasons, insisted, and against which the prede-
cessors of this bishop had never ceased to protest. But
while the hierarchy had swung completely round the
circle, there had been consistency in its course. It had
always, and while apparently pursuing the most opposite
policy, had in view the increase of its own influence. The
Seminary was reproached with having no influence in
the city of Montreal but that which its money purchased.*
The jealousy which the Seminary excited in the other
clergy was extreme. It continued to be a nursery of
Gallicanism long after Gallicanism had become hateful
in the eyes of the bishop.

On the first appointment of M. Lartigue the Govern-
ment refused to allow him to take the title of Bishop of
Montreal. It is insinuated that this fact was not without
its influence in causing the Sulpicians to refuse to provide
him with a shelter during a period of fifteen years, and

* Brouillon de notes envoy^esa M, Faillon, en Avril, 1850, sur I'opinion du Dioceie
de Montreal. Par M.Jos. Marcoux, missionnaire des sauvages du Sault St. Louis,
Caughnawaga.

:ti

1 62

ROME IN CANADA.

that when they did offer him quarters, he was no longer
in need of them.*

The result of the division between the ecclesiastics was
to divide the laymen into two parties which cordially
hated one another ;t but all the writers who preceded
him had not done one-half as much to inflame that hatred
as Alph. Villeneuve. The truth is, the time had come
when the New School felt strong enough to make a mortal
attack on its ancient enemy, with the hope of extinguishing
the last remnant of liberal Catholic thought in the Pro-
vince of Quebec.

With this explanation, anyone who desires *to turn to
that work will be the better able to understand Villeneuve's
Comedie Infernale, on Conjuration Liberate aux Enfers. The
scene is laid in the audience hall of the palace ot Pande-
monium, fortress of Satan, between two deep gorges in
the middle of V enfers. \ Time, December ist, 1870.
Lucifer is seated on his throne. Astoroth addresses him :
* Prince of the dark asylum, this day will be for thy faith-
ful subjects a day of ineffable joy. To celebrate thy recent
triumphs over the Church, the infernal regions have come

* MStnoirede Mgr. J. N. Provencher, Eveque de Juliopolis, afterwards Bishop of
St. Boniface, Red River.

t Messire de J. B. Ch. B^dard.

\ The foUowinK are the dramatis penor.ce ;—

Lucifer,

Prince des D^^mons.

Belzebuth,

Prince des Seraphim.

Leviathan,

Prince des Cherubins.

Astoroth,

Prince des Trflnea.

Babel,

Prince des Vertui.

Carreau,

Prince des Puissances.

Belial,

Prince des Principaut6s.

Oliver,

Prince des Archanges.

Baalberith,

Prince des Anges.

Axaphat,

General des Trdnes.

Fume-Bouche,

Lieutenant des Puiaiances.

Perrier,

Due des Empires.

Bellas,

Amiral des Vertus.

Rosier,

G('neral des Principaut^.

Baal,

Vieux Chef retir6 du service

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

163

to place their homage at thy feet, and to make these
secular arches resound with their songs of joy.' Lucifer
understands this enthusiasm ; Europe having definitively
set out on the road to damnation. After much fatigue,
Belzebuth discovers in America a Catholic people
on the banks of a majestic river. Lucifer recog-
nizes in the description the Canadian people, with
whom he has been acquainted from their origin.
Nearly twenty years before he had instructed Carreau
(which some insist must be read Cartier) to resort
to special ruses, by which he had more or less suc-
ceeded. Belzebuth is able to bear witness to the in-
comparable zenl of Carreau; but he had been indiscreet
in being too openly impious to deceive so profoundly reli-
gious a people. Alter a number of older errors had been
broken down, Lucifer asked for, and obtained, Gallican
Churches and Liberal Governments. By aid of the mitre
and the mantle of religion, Belial bears witness, liberal-
ism and Gallicanism everywhere obtained admittance.
Those who professed the new error * fell asleep in a pious
delusion ; they bielieved they were serving the Church in
denying its authority, its supremacy, and its rights over
the State. The Catholic populations the more readily
fell into these snares as they were allured on by the most
religious of men.' (Lucifer retires.)

As Belzebuth liad sojourned a whole year in Canada,
Belial asks him for a description of the country. ' Wil-
lingly,' is the reply : ' In the first place, it is a country
altogether Catholic, and entirely devoted to the Pope.
These young men whom I have seen at Rome were the
Canadian Zouaves.' * A bad sign,' remarked Astoroth ;
' very bad,' chimed in Belial. Whereupon Belzebuth im-
plored thsm not to despair. * Lucifer,' he observed,
' seeing that impiety did not take in Canada, since I'ln-

stitut Canadien, in spite of the ability of the Dessaulles,
II

'164

ROME IN CANADA.

the Doutres, the Lanctots, and several similar celebrities,
had been able to attract to its bosom only souls lost by
anticipation, counselled Carreau to leave aside, for a while,
the heavy artillery, and proceed to the attack with the
light infantry of Catholic liberalism.' He explains that
in Montreal, with a population of a hundred and sixty
thousand souls, there is but a single cure. From Rome
instructions had come to the Bishop of Montreal to divide
the city into several parishes. This the bishop was most
anxious to do; but the gentlemen of the Seminary, pre-
tending to be perpetual cures of the city, interposed objec-
tions : they had always opposed the episcopal authority.
* No matter,' word came from Rome, 'do your duty, dis-
member the parish of Notre-Dame.' The bishop, as in
duty bound, obeyed ; but not without foreseeing that he
should meet with serious opposition from the Perpetual
Cures. Belzebuth bears witness that it is not in the
nature of Galileans to submit. The Perpetual Cures
protested, and carried their protest to Rome. They
raised every possible prejudice, saying: 'The bishop
desires to despoil and ruin us.' Other pet sons were heard
to say, that the bishop was desirous to render himseli
matter of the property of the Perpetual Cures. The
entire rebellion was fermented by two or three of the
Perpetual Cures. Carreau urged on the opposition of
this rich corporation, which was strong by means of its
political friendships. In order the better to succeed, the
civil laws were studied, and in them some ambiguities
regarding the division of parishes were found. The Per-
petual Cures had always desired to form an independent
power in the Church in Canada. The first Bishop of
Quebec had proved, at Rome, that they were disobedient
priests, opposed to the Holy See, and in fine Jansenists.
When a late Bishop of Montreal gathered the Jesuits,
the Oblats, and other religious orders around him, the

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

i6j5

Perpetual Cures objected, at Rome, that he had no right
to do so without their permission. Their present Su-
perior went so far as publicly to announce that the bishop,
in conforming to the apostolic decree of Dec. 22, acted
without prudence, with injustice, and in opposition to the
interest of souls. In spite of the immense revenue of the
parish of Montreal, where the casual dues are very high,
they affirmed that the parish owed them four hundred
thousand dollars. They give a hundred and forty-four
dollars per head to the Christian Brothers (Frires des
Ecoles Chri'tiennes), and something to the Sisters of the
Congregation, to aid them in supporting a little class of
the poor, in four different localities. For the sick, the
infirm, for orphans, they give nothing, or next to nothing.

In contrast to this picture, Belztbuth gives one of the
Oblats, whose knowledge and virtue he lauds. But their
great virtue is that they bow submissively to the Pope,
believe in his infallibility, are devoted to the Church, and
everywhere submit themselves to episcopal authority.

The parishes being canonically erected, the Perpetual
Cures caused the State to withdraw the civil registers
therefrom, alleging that the bishop cai ot canonically
erect a parish without obtaining the suffrages of the ma-
jority ; that the cures of the canonical parishes, not civilly
recognized, are incompetent to celebrate marriages ; that
the cure of a parish, canonical and civil, has a territorial
jurisdiction and duties which the ecclesiastical authority
can neither affect nor diminish ; that the cure, canonical
and civil, can be constrained by the tribunals to perform
baptisms, marriages, and sepulchres for the parishioners
of a canonical parish.

After this explanation, Astoroth breaks forth : * I now
comprehend the thoughts of Carreau in the whole affair ;
he desires to establish Gallicanism in Canada, for such
pretensions are Gallican.' • Thou divinest truly,' quoth

y'l

1 66

ROME IN CANADA.

Belzcbuth, 'these pretensions of the Perpetual Cures are
condemned by the Syllabus of 1864.'

Sir George Cartier is represented by one of the demons
as having inspired the Minerve to say that the law re-
quires the observance of certain formalities in the forma-
tion of a parish which no power can set aside, and which,
in the present instance, have not been complied with.
And to support their pretensions, the Perpetual Cures in-
duced a judge to write a code against the pretensions of
Rome and of the bishop.

The demons who are made to espouse the cause ot the
bishop, represent the Perpetual Cures as being guilty of
an incredible degree of bad faith, and making statements
• entirely false ; ' as persecuting priests who took part with
the bishop ; as entering into intrigues to carry their
point ; as being guilty of the enormity of discouraging
persons engaged in getting up a bazaar for the benefit of
the Jesuits.

When the Guibord affair came under discussion, Belze-
buth confessed that he had blown the 'cannibal inspira-
tion of Joseph Doutre against the Jesuits, as well as the
historical dissertation of Louis DessauUes.' The plaidoyer
of M. Trudel, the advocate of the Church, in this case,
was approved by two of the great theologians at Rome.

Before the opening of the seventh scene, Belzebuth re-
sumes his throne, and makes a sign to the demons to take
their seats. He tells Carreau, who is present for the first
time, that he had been awaiting him with impatience ; he
had heard of his successes and his fears. He desired to re-
ceive him in the bosom of his council, and encouraged him
to speak with confidence, as the hall was surrounded by
legions of deaf and dumb demons. Being thus reassured,
Carreau tells the illustrious monarch that he has followed
his late counsel to the letter. ♦ I left aside impiety for a
while,' he said, 'to occupy myself more specially with errors

i i

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

167

which had a Catholic look. I profited by the burning
question of the division of Montreal into parishes ; a book,
the Code des Cures, by Judge Baudry, appeared, proclaim-
ing perverse doctrines, but possessing a certain Catholic
mirage.'

Lucifer. — • What is this book at bottom ? '

Carreau. — 'The author, while protesting his devotion to
the Church and his respect for ecclesiastical authority,
while affirming that he does not desire the separation of
Church and State, nor the subordination of the Church
to the State '

Several demons. — ' Why affirm such doctrines ? '

Lucifer. — * Listen, wait to hear the end before blaming.*

Carreau. — ' The author, while affirming these Catholic
doctrines, employs his time and his pen in establishing
those of an entirely opposite character.'

Lucifer. — ' I know it well.'

Carreau. — * He establishes, in the first place : that, in
Canada, the bishop is not at liberty to take the initiative
in the formation of any parish whatever, canonical or
civil ; that for this purpose, it is necessary to wait for a
request from the majority oi the people, even when the
salvation of a whole town evidently requires this to be
done, when the canons of the Church are clear, and the
conscience of the pastor engaged.' ,

All in Chorus. — 'Vive le Code des Cures,^

Carreau. — ' Secondly, that the bishop is not at liberty
to say that property consecrated to God, and which has
come out of the common mass, for example the property
of the Fabriques, is the property of the Catholic Church.'

All in Chorus. — 'Long live the author of the Code des
Cures.'

The debates of the Vatican Council had begun to alarm
Carreau, and made him think of giving up the work which
Lucifer had counselled him to do. ' I must avow,' he

i- (

i68

ROME IN CANADA.

said, 'that it would perhaps be better to abandon the
affair of the parishes, Gallicanism, and Catholic liberal-
ism ; for I have observed that, since the great debates in the
Vatican Council, people have been on theii guard against
these doctrines.

Lucifer. — ' Explain ihyself.'

Carreau. — ' Before the controversy on infallibility be-
gan, the liberal writings of Dupanloup, Montalembert,
and others, were much lauded in Canada. The Minerif!,
the Journal de Quebec, the Echo du Cabinet de Lecture,
published and praised the speeches delivered at the dif-
ferent congresses of Malines by these celebrated Catho-
lics. Even the Revue Canadienne vaunted Dupanloup's
book on the encyclical of the 8th Deer,'

Lucifer. — 'And :-'nc-2 the Council?'

Carreau. — 'Thev same journals have preserved an ex-
treme reser\'e with regard to these illustrious writers.'

Lucifer. — ' Are these journals in favour of Ultramon-
tanism?'

Carreau. — ' The jfoumal de Quebec, no ;* but the Min-
erve, yes ! '

Carreau is inclined to hope against hope, and comforts
himself with the reflection that Gallicanism, which is the
basis of Catholic liberalism, penetrated into Canada with
the French law, and that it still possesses considera jle re-
sources in the education of members of the bar. Lucifer,
in consideration of the fact that Canada is a profoundly
religious country, the country on which heaven reposes,
concluded that all the forces of hell must be concentrated
against it ; at which all approve by shouting bravo !
bravo ! bravissimo ! * This affair,' he said, • of the parishes
of Montreal is founded on the liberty of the Church, on
its supremacy, and those who oppose priests and seculars

* The answer would now be yeg, bi t with a dispocition to prevent extreme encroach-
tnenta on the pk.-t of thw cicrgy.

.!>.

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

169

can triumph only in subjugating the Church.' Everything.
Lucifer admits, depends on the colour of the politics ;
when these cease to have a CathoHc complexion, the
people soon follow the same impulses in other respects.
A system of erroneous politics had enabled the demons to
triumph in Europe, and now a commencement must be
made in Canada ; success in that enterprise would render
everything else easy.

Baal tells how this is to be done : ' Confine yourself to
preventing the authority of the Church being accepted
in politics : Proclaim that kings, civil powers, legislation,
are independent of the Church ; that the family, mar-
riage, education, are purely civil institutions, and that
the Church has no control over them : by that means,
you will deprive the State of that divine light and that
borrowed force which it requires to enable it to march in
the straight path. To separate Church and State is to
sap the foundation of the work of salvation ; because it is
to take Irom nations and governments the graces of state
which are necessary to their salvation.'

In the eleventh scene, Belzebuth exposes the political
error — Caesarism — of which he declares himself the father.
Evidently referring to the four articles of the Gallica
liberties, he says; *I assumed the air of an apostle, and
said, render unto Caesar the things which are vl^ccsar's, and
unto God the things which are God's. Only I made the
division. I gave everything to Caesar, and nothing unto God.'

Being asked what the Church says of the doctrine of
the separation ot the tv/o powers, Lucifer answers, that
she necessarily condemns it. ' She says that, having
been established in the world without the aid of the
throne, she ought to surpass the throne ; that the State
can never surpass her, and thus can never separate from
her. The doctrine of the separation of the two powers
is therefore satanic'

XT©

ROME IN CANADA.

I »

The Programme Catholique and its history become a
subject of the infernal dialogue. The Programme
is described as having been the work of six laymen,
and its object^ to assure for the future, by means of
parliamentary flections, an exclusively Catholic policy.
It in effect told the electors to vote only for those who
promised to support the bishops in questions on which
they might be called upon to legislate. The opposition
of the Minerve to the Programme is represented as having
been inspired by Sir George Cartier, whose opposition to
the dismemberment of the parish of Notre-Dame had
embroiled him with the bishop. The words put mto the
mouth of Astoroth represent very fairly the spirit of
party ; * To be a Conservative,' the Minerve is made to
say, • it is necessary to be disciplined and obedient.
When one joins a party, he comes under an engagement
to obey its chiefs in everytliing.' No Conservative, the
statement is ventured, could have been elected unless he
had promised to support the bishops, a promise which, it
is admitted, was never before exacted. Three bishops
complained of the inconvenience which resulted from the
Programme having been drawn up without consultation
with the episcopate. In the discussion which the Pro-
gramme provoked, the jfournpl de Qut^bec rejected the
doctrine of the subordination of the State to the Church ;
conduct which Rosier qualifies as atheistical.

In the third act, the demons are in a state of conster-
nation, when Lucifer announces that their deliberations
of the first of December, 1870, and the second of August,
1871, have been laid before the Canadian public in the
Comedie Infernale. The resolution is come to that the
Perpetual Cures must be defended. It is of course intended
that the defence shall prove a failure. The Seminary is
represented to be in a state of rebellion against the Holy
See and the bishop, and its right oi appeal to Rome,

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

171

which is admitted to exist, is, in the exercise, treated as
an abuse. ' The poor Sulpicians desire to govern the
Church, but they have not received the graces necessary
for that purpose. It is the bishop who, lor that end, has
received a special grace.'

The Sulpicians are made responsible for the opposition
of Chaboillez to Mgr. Lartigue, though the documents on
which the Comedie professes to be founded clearly show
this assumption to be false. They aie represented as
carrying their zeal for the Government to an extreme
length. ' We must not,' says Baalberith, ' be astonished
at this monstrous conduct. The Galileans, whether priests
or not, are capable of attemptmg everything, even excom-
municating the Governments which refuse to molest the
Church.'

There is no doubt that the suffragan, Mgr. deTelmesse,
was not a welcome guest with the Seminary, which would
have preferred that the seat of episcopal authority should
have remained as far distant from their establishment as
the city of Quebec. But if the marguilliers of the parish
of Notre-Dame refused the episcopal throne to Mgr. de
Telmesse, it must be remembered that he refused to
exhibit the bulls in virtue of which he claimed to be en-
titled thereto.

M. Olier, who founded the Order of Sulpicians, is repre-
sented as having expressed the most absolute submission
to the prelates, and as havmg gone so far as to say that
if the Order should ever place itself in opposition to them,
he should demand the destruction of the House, which
would become the object of anathema ia the face of the
whole universe. It is unquestionably true that the Sulpi-
cians of Montreal have so far departed from this rule as
to have been in a state of perpetual and chronic opposi-
tion to the bishops of Montreal, siuce the day of their
creatioi to the present time. But the antagonism was

xya

ROME IN CANADA.

i

mutual, and the bishops may fairly be credited with the
larger share of the acerbity which the quarrel evoked.
The appointment of Mgr. Lartigue was resented as being
in opposition to the Galilean liberties : it had not been
preceded by the inquest de commodo et incommodo. The
Pope was charged with violating the canons to which he
owed obedience. Villeneuve makes Lucifer expose this
error, that the Popes have not ' received from Christ
authority, plenary power, supreme and universal.' Such
a power could not, of course, be subordinate and depen-
dent. Lartigue was a Sulpician, and as the Bishop of
Quebec had no revenue which he could allocate to his
suffragan, it seems to have been intended that he should
have continued to live in the House of the Sulpicians, and
that they should have provided him a suitable revenue.
But this was not their view of the matter : they thought
that when the Bishop of Quebec procured the appoint-
ment of a suffragan, he should have been in a position to
assign him a suitable revenue. The Sulpicians are much
reproached foi; not providing a palace and an income for
Mgr. Lartigue ; but the reproach is not just, for they
were under no obligation to do, in this particular, what
it is pretended they ought to have done.

The most fatal blow that could be dealt to the Sulpi-
cians was to divide the parish of Notre-Dame. The
Bishop of Montreal being at Rome, in 1854, had a con-
versation on the subject with the Secretary of the Propa-
ganda, Cardinal Barnabo, when the later ■ jlunteered to
authorize its dismemberment. At a later period, the Semi-
nary demanded a hearing at Rome, but it was destined tc
be defeated. It then came to pass that, in pursuance of
orders from Rome, the city of Montreal was carved up into
a number of parishes, in defiance of the laws of the land,
as interpreted by Judge Baudry and other respectable
authorities.

n'

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

173

Villeneuve divides the Conservatives into Ultramon-
tans and liberal Catholics : the latter he describes as being
deceived by the Sulpicians. Lucifer apolopfizes for Sir
George Cartier, and says that he and the other Conserva-
tives are submissive to the Church, and that the Sulpicians
have exercised a particular pressure on him in the matter
of the dismemberment. There was, it cannot be denied,
a real anomaly in Sir George being the counsel lor the
Seminary, when, as a public man, he had to decide be-
tween them and the bishop.

In the fifth act, the Jesuits, by contrast with the Sulpi-
cians, are liberally bespattered with praise. If the latter
engaged in worthy enterprises, the Jesuits, and after them
the Oblats, are represented as always leading the way. In
the fourth act, the following dialogue takes place among
the demons : —

Bellas. — ' The Society of Jesus is the invincible fortress
of Ultramontanism.'

Oliver. — 'The Society of Jesus is the mortal and sworn
enemy of Gallicanism and liberalism.'

All. — ' The Society of Jesus ought to be the supreme
and highest object of our anger, of our combats, and our
vengeance.'

Lucifer. — * Ah ! Let us combat the Jesuits 1 Chase
them from Canada and our cause is gained ! '

Babel. — ' It is all very fine to talk, mais que fair e ?'

Oliver. — ' We have attempted ever3^thing since they
have been in existence.'

Babel. — ' In Canada, we have scarcely done anything
against them since their return. The wisdom of Lucifer
did not desire that we should.'

Lucifer (furious). — ' Thou liest viper ! Thou liest !'

Babel (derisively). — * It is true I forgot that Big Jos. had
chanted the hymn of the cannibals, on the altar of their
generous martyrs !'

174

ROME IN CANADA.

I

Belzebuth (sensibly piqued). — ' And this hymn has had
its effect.'

Babel. — * I do not desire to blame Belzebuth for having
inspired it. I desire only to recall what has been done.
They ought to have been persecuted, chased . . . .'

/Several voices. — * Bravo ! Bravo !'

Baalberith. — 'Thus, then, it is agreed: war to the
Jesuits !

All.—' War to the Jesuits 1'

Baalberith. — ' Only it is probable that we shall not suc-
ceed. They enjoy, in Canada, great consideration and
high esteem. The people venerate them. The clergy
and the bishops give them their protection. The Bishop
of Montreal, especially, is their benefactor and devoted
protector. He has already given extraordinary proofs of
th'j spocial affection which he bears them. On their part,
the Jesuits entertain for his eminence a respect, a venera-
tion, and a devotion, which are proof against every-
thing.'

Lucifer. — ' The Bishop of Montreal, is he not ill ?'

Baalberith. — * Very seriously.'

Lucifer. — ' So much the better, if he went we . . .'

Several voices. — * Let him die ! Let him die 1 '

Baalberith. — 'Another senseless desire 1' /

Lucifer.—' What ?'

Baalberith. — ' In dying the venerable Bishop of Mont-
real would not abandon his diocese. More than now he
would be the angel (great emotion),

Baalberith. — ' His blessed shade would hover over his
tbwn and his diocese.'

Here we see distinctly the author's attitude towards the
different parties in the Church of Rome : mortal enmity
to the Sulpicians, praise and encouragement for the Jesu-
its. Those countries which, in self-defence, have at dif-
ferent times been obliged to expel the Jesuits, were, if we

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

175

accept the assurance of Villeneuve, inspired thereto by
Luciler. It is possible, looking at history, to imagine a
contingency in which the suggestion put into the mouth of
Lucifer, in the infernal dialogue, might become a prophesy.

Let us here recall the fact that he Comedie Infernale
was written in the interest of the Bishop of Montreal and
to aid. in the dismemberment of the parish of Notre-Dame;
that this onslaught on the Sulpicians, vile in conception
and malignant in execution, was accepted by that high
dignitary without protest and apparently with gratitude ;
that the book was not consigned to the Index or received
with disapprobation at Rome ; and that to answer it was
treated as a crime by the highest ecclesiastical function-
ary in the diocese of Montreal.

The Sulpicians may comfort themselves, if they can
find any comfort in the companionship of misery or mis-
fortune, by reflecting that they had not to bear alone the
whole weight of the Ultramontane attack.

At the distance of a year from the appearance of the
Programme Catholique came the celebration of the golden
wedding of the priesthood of the Bishop of Montreal.
And now that tentative programme, that literary enfant
trouve which was fondled with such deep affection, was
left far behind, like a guide-post which had served the
Ultramontanes on their march, and which now remained
to mark the track over which they passed in their
triumphant march. The ashes of Gallicanism still smoul-
dered, like the remains of a sacred fire, on the hearth of the
Archiepiscopal pa^^ce at Quebec. The 'venomous serpent'
of Catholic Liberalism still glided about in forbidden
places, making accursed that which ought to be holy.
The golden wedding would attract a majority of the
Episcopate and a large body of the inferior clergy. The
occasion might be seized by the Ultramontanes tor send-
ing forth a manifesto in the shape of a sermon. T he blow

176

ROME IN CANADA.

thus to be struck at the Gallicans could be made to tell
with stunning effect. So it was arranged. The Jesuit
Braiin, whose principles had been revealed in his work on
marriage, was selected to deliver the sermon. He would
be glad of an opportunity to deal a nameless blow at the
Archbishop and all who shared his views. This would
at once avenge an old grudge and advance the good
cause.

It is only on very special occasions that a simple priest,
who can never be more than a simple priest, is permitted
the distinction of preaching before a congregation embrac-
ing many high dignitaries, including archbishop, bishops,
aad priests. This distinction the Jesuit Braiin now enjoyed.
He began by saying that, in dispensing spiritual gifts to
the faithful, their cures and bishops were to them other
Christs. Their father, the bishop whose golden wedding
was being celebrated, bad gone about doing good ; and
they were to second his efforts by their docility and zeal.
In enumerating the rights of the Church, which he under-
took to defend against the * errors ' of the day, he claimed
for her the prerogative of making laws to bind the consci-
ence, and to which the State is bound to submit ; of
making laws on the subject of marriage; of erecting
parishes, w^hout the intervention of the civil power ; of
superintending education in public schools. The State
was bound to yield implicit obedience to the Church.
The fashion of looking on the majority as the source of
right, now in vogue, was a revival of the old Pagan des-
potism.

• Gallicanism and Liberal Catholicism,' said the Jesuit
preacher, ' have powerfully contributed to the propagation
of all these errors.' ' Gallicanism' he defined to be ' in-
subordination towards the Holy Father, servility to the
civil power, despotism towards inferiors.' * The Gallican,'
he added, ' refuses to obey the Pope, against whom he arms

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

177

himself with the protection of the powers of this earth ;
while he grants to the civil power, which protects him in his
rebellion, all the authority which he refuses to the Sov-
ereign Pontiff. Everywhere the Galileans are the flatterers
of the civil power, to which they have recourse even in
ecclesiastical cases, in which the bishop or the Sovereign
Pontiff should have the right of adjudication. 'This in-
subordination towards the Holy Father, and this servility
towards the civil power,' the preacher reminded his
hearers, * was stigmatized by Pope Innocent XL, in a brief
of April II, 168-2, to the bishops who formed the Assembly
of the French clergy' which adopted the four articles.

Gallicanism having received its due share of flagella-
tion, Liberalism next came up for sentence. * Liberalism,'
said the Jesuit preacher, ' is a so-called generosity to-
wards error; it is a readiness to yield on the score of
principles. Liberal Catholics grant to the State the
right of requiring that parishes, bishoprics, and religious
orders be civilly incorporated, as a condition of their
having the right to hold property. They grant that the
State has a right to limit the possessions of the Church ;
to make laws for regulating the administration of Church
property. They grant to the State the right of taking
possession of Church property and keeping it ; thus
sanctioning the principle of communism. Speak to
those sacrilegious usurpers of restitution : their only an-
swer will be a sneer. Liberal Catholics pretend that the
State can prescribe the form of marriage, define invalidat-
ing impediments, and pronounce upon the conjugal ties
in matrimonial causes. Liberal Catholics confide to the
State the syperintendence and direction of primary schools,
to the detriment of the Church and fathers of families
They grant to the State the rights of intervening in the
erection of parishes, independently of any authorization
of the Holy See.'

178

ROME IN CANADA.

These errors, Father Braun declared, were gaining
ground in the country ; were causing the Church to lose
its independence, and threatening ere long ' to place her
on the same level as the so-called Church created by
Henry VIII. All these fatal errors,* he emphatically de-
clared, ' must be fought against : the State must be entire-
ly subordinat'^d to the Church,' must give its civil sanc-
tion to the decrees of che Church, and defend and enforce
all her claims, both civil and spiritual. The Provincial
Council of Quebec, he volunteered the information, had
decided • that apostolic constitutions, once published in
Rome, become binding in this country.' Government
did not concur in the erection of parishes : it simply
legislated on the civil effects of their canonic erection by
the Church.

Before closing, the preacher passed a strong eulogy on
Bishop Bourget, the leader of the Ultramontanes in
Canada, at whose golden wedding his hearers had come
to rejoice, and reiterated the assertion of the complete in-
dependence of the Church, coupled with the absolute sub-
ordination of the State thereto.*

This declaration of war created indignation and con-
sternation among such of the clergy and bishops as it
was directed against. The attack was to be promptly
followed up till victory was won.

Archbishop Baillargeon of Quebec found himself in
sympathy with the Bishop of Orleans, when the latter
wrote his celebrated letter on the Vatican Council. Of
this letter the author caused to be sent a MS. copy to the
Archbishop of Quebec, with the words ecrit de sa main.
This letter the Archbishop caused to be printed and distri-
buted among his clergy, in the beginning of the year 1868.

The ' dangerous doctrines ' contained in this letter did
not escape the vigilant eye of the emissaries of a foreign

♦ The Witness, Montreal.

77//; ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

179

power. An obscure journal, the Gazette des Campagnes,
was made the medium of the censure. This paper was
published under the auspices of the college of Ste. Anne ;*
and as the letter had been published by authority of the
Archbishop, the adverse comments, cominfj from Catho-
lics, seem to have been construed as a defiance of episco-
pal authority. Vicar-General Cazeau, feeling it his duty
to communicate the article to the Archbishop, who was
then at Rome in attendance on the Vatican Council, first
wrote to enquire whether it had been written with the
consent ot the members of the corporation of the college ;
if not, desiring that they might announce the fact in the
same journal, or, if they preferred it, send the disavowal
direct to him".*' They were reminded that they were re-
quired to inculcate respect for their first pastor ; and a
hint was given that, it this were not done, changes in the
persons in charge of the college might be made : a threat
which was afterwards carried into effect.

This sleepless surveillance belongs to the severity of
ecclesiastical administration in the Roman Catholic
Church under its most liberal phases, and tends to pre-
vent criticism of any writing or opinion to which the
stamp of episcopal approval has been given ; but the
consequences are more serious when the only opinions
allowed to be expressed are those to be found in the
Syllabus a.ndthe Vatican decrees. That M. Cazeau and the
late Archbishop of Quebec were once liberal in the sense
liberals were condemned by the Pope seems undeniable.
The editor ot the Gazette was sure of an easy triumph.
An appeal to Rome in favour of Infallibility, and against

* At that time, the Rev. Alexis Pelletier was professor in the college of Ste. Anne
(Abbi! Tanguay) ; and there is little doubt that he was ringleader in this attack. He
had previously been professor in the University of Laval ; and he carried away
with him an undying antipathy to that seat of learning, which breaks oi;t on every occa-
sion. He has been a formidable ally of the Jesuits and Bithop Dourgtt in their at-
tempts to discredit Laval and set up a Jesuit University in opposition at Montreal,

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i8o

ROME IN CANADA.

Bishop Dupanloup and his sympathizers, was certain to
be successful ; and the placing of the sanctum of the
Gazette des Campagnes above the throne of the Archbishop
shows what the press can do in the Province of Quebec,
when it ranges itself on the side of Ultramontanism.

The Bishop of Orleans published more letters ; and
the Gazette des Campagnes thundered new censures. The
yonnial de Quebec, which in that particular phase of its
existence got credit for speaking the language of the
Catholic liberals, was suspected of receiving the secret
approbation of the Vicar-General; a suspicion which is
laid to the charge of M. Cazeau as a crime.* The
yojirnal claimed the right of believing or disbelieving in
Papal infallibility. The visits of the editor to the Archi-
episcopal palace were carefully noted, and became the cause
of great scandal; and Ultramontane spies observed that
there was an established connection between these visits
and each new vindication of Catiiolic Liberalism in the
jfoicrnal. But time ever brings its changes ; and when
Dupanloup had wheeled into line, why should a Canadian
journalist be den'^d the privilege of repentance ? By
steady persistence Rome gains her conquests in the
domain of civil liberty.

Near the close of 1869 and the beginning of 1870, the
Ultramontanes gained an accession of advocates in the
press. Abbe Jos. S. Martel, cure of Ste. Julie de Som-
merset, and M. Routhier of Kamouraska, a lawyer, began
to proclaim aloud the truth of the doctrines promulgated
at Rome, the admission of which meant death to the old
GaUicanism. By the light of the Syllabus, Abbe Martel
discovered that the conditions under which public educa-
tion was carried on were deplorable ; and, taking the

* n(M. Cazeau) encourager, au moin par une approbation tacite Thomme du
Journal de Quebec k\e saL\h,^\iSitTC moisi durant, de toutes les injures et les calom-
nies imaginables. II (the editor of the Journal de Quebec) soutenait qu'on etait libre
de croire on de ne pas croire I'l I'infalibiliti' pontificale. — Abbi- Pelletier, Lib. et Gal,

1

i

HE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

Z8z

canonist Bouix for a subordinate guide, he contended
that the choice of masters and of books for public schools,
purely secular in their character, belonged to the Church ;
that the teachers should be 'profoundly Catholic,' and
under the obligation of following the rules which the
Church might lay down for their guidance. + The only
duty reserved to the State in this scheme, is obedience
to the behests of the Church, whose decrees it should consi-
der it a duty to execute. This may serve to give us some
idea of the tenure by which the Protestant minority of
Quebec hold their educational rights, and the circumstan-
ces under which an attempt would be made to deprive
them oi guarantees of which Abbe Martel, adopting the
doctrine of Bouix in all its rigour, thus early essayed the
destruction.

From a doctrine so startling as this, M. Chauveau.
then Superintendent of Education, shrank with alarm,
Vicar-General Cazeau resisted the innovation. The
French Canadian press, though divided on the subject,
generally refused assent. AI. Routhier, the Kamouraska
advocate, now a judge, contended for the right of the
Church to take the absolute direction of the public schools.
Episcopal encouragement of a doctrine so agreeable to
Rome was not long wanting. Mgr. Birtha, who thea
exercised the functions of bishop at Montreal, in the
absence of Mgr. Bourget, wrote a letter of encouraging
congratulation to Abbe Martel and another to M. Rou-
thier.| Vicar-General Cazeau, who represented the Arch-
bishop in his absence, wrote to Mgr. Birtha to express

+ Ainsi, says this canonist, dans I'organization des I'coles publiques, le pouvoir civil
est tt-nu, quant a tout ce qui visnt d'ite enumtre d'obtenir I'assentiment du pouvoir
ecclesiastique, et il doit, en pareille matiire, lui laisser pleine liberti' d'exercer la
surveillance, de prescrire ce qu'il jugera convenable et de le faire executer.

*: M. Pinsonneault.when he retired from the Bishopric of Sandwich, Canada West
(Ontario), received the title of Mgr. de Birtha. To the late Bishop of Montreal all
tho leading Ultramontanes were attracted by an irresistible affinity.

l82

ROME IN CANADA.

his disapprobation of the countenance the latter had given
to these innovators.* He was anxious to prevent all dis-
cussion of the subject ; and one of his complaints was
that M. Routhier had written in the journals in contempt
of ecclesiastical authority, so little latitude of freedom
do the most liberal Roman Catholic ecclesiastics in Que-
bec give to laymen. Mgr. de Birtha, in reply, recalled
the fact that the Pope had often encouraged journalists
who, like Louis Veuillot, had placed their pens at the
service cf the Church ; and he could find no words suffi-
ciently strong to laud ' the brave cure' who had so
valiantly combatted the encroachments of the laity in the
direction of education. As lor himself, he had only done
what the Provincial Councils and the Pope, in various
encylicals, had ordered to be done. The Pope had, in
the previous Januar}', in writing to the editor of a Rio
Janeiro journal, incited him to ' cry aloud, to sound the
trumpet^' as 'Catholic journalism is one of the most effi-
cacious means of dissipating error.' After fortifying him-
self with this quotation from infallible authority, Mgr. de
Birtha, addressing M. Cazeau, says : 'And you, my dear
Vicar-General, you say to the Catholic journalism of Que-
bec : Silence, silence ; no discussion ; ' and this by way
of prudence. These Ultramontane writers express inef-
fable contempt for everything that at all savours of pru-
dence.

The Abbe Pelletier now claimed to have convicted
Vicar-General Cazeau of the double crime of Gallicanism
and Liberalism. ,The orthodoxy of the views expressed
by M. Routhier was guaranteed by this priest : they had
• the merit of being qualified as Ultramontane, in opposi-
tion to those called Gallican and Liberal.' ' We have there-
fore,' exclaimed Pelletier, ' from the hand of Vicar-

J
J

I

* In this letter tlfe Vicur-Geneial said : J'ai regrette de voir un evoque venir donner
.ta sanction u tout ccla, et je n'ai pu empcvher dc trouver sa demarciie intempe^tive.

nr

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

183

i' M

General Cazeau an authentic document attesting that at
Quebec,' in the palace of the Archbishop, * profession is
made of Gallicanism and Liberalism.' The Gallicanism
which had a vigorous existence at Quebec six years
ago is now silent as the tomb. Is it dead beyond the
possibility of recovery ?

The college of Ste. Anne became a hotbed in which the
new opinions were forced. In the summer of 1870 the
Archbishop of Quebec resolved upon the removal of all
the teachers, and formally addressed them a letter to
that effect. They refused submission, and threatened
to appeal to Rome. Called upon to disavow the author-
ship ot the articles in the Gazette des Cnmpagnes, they
replied, Jesuitically, that they regretted whatever had
appeared in that journal which could reasonably offend
the Archbishop. The organ of the Archbishop simulated
satisfaction with an answer which was the reverse of
satisfactory. So obnoxious were the new opinions that
M. Cazeau did what he could to prevent their expression
in the press. He is said to have succeeded, for a long
time, in imposing silence on the Courrier dii Canada, and
to have discouraged to the utmost of his power the cir-
culation of the Nouvcau Monde, an Ultramontane journal,
set up at the instance of the Bishop of Montreal. In
the nomination of cures, it was charged against him that
lie favoured the old Galileans and discouraged the new
opinions ; that he retained in high positions the Abbe
Chandonnet, who shared his liberal views and defended
them ; while Ultramontane priests sometimes sought a
refuge in expatriation from the vexation caused by what
they considered a want of appreciation of their merits.
The malice of his enemies charged that he sent M. Proulx
to Beauce, as to a penal colony. Between him and the Ger-
man Jesuit Braiin, notorious for the extravagance of his
Ultramontane views, there could be no sympathy. This

i;tj

m

I

1 84

ROME IN CANADA.

Jesuit found a natural ally in Bishop Bourget ; and he
found his true place when, leaving Quebec, he took up his
residence in Montreal. If M. Cazeau had not made him
specially welcome in the ancient capital, the fact should
redound to the credit of a Canadian ol the old school, and
not be invoked against him.

Nor do the writers of the New School confine their
attacks to ecclesiastics of the Old School. Whenever a
case comes before the courts m which Ultramontane pre-
tensions have to be passed on, the judge becomes the
target of attack. He is accused of partiality, of indulging
forbidden sympathies, of holding the scales of justice un-
evenly. When Judge Mondelet, during the hearing of the
Guibord case, became the target of these attacks, he said
in open court : ' I have been calumniated, but happily I
am above calumny ; ' and he pointed out the evils that
would result from the success of like efforts to destroy
public confidence in the partiality of our judges : ' It
would be a thousand times better,' he said, 'to have nei-
ther judges nor tribunals, to suffer the loss of our consti-
tution, to be condemned to helotism, rather than see the
people lose confidence in the tribunals ; for, if these were
once abolished, the regime of carbines and bayonets
would commence' During, the course of the trial, he
stated that he had received certain indirect admonitions,
and he indicated that an appeal had been made to the
Government in the hope of inducing it to make an attack
upon his independence, an appeal which he justly char-
acterizes as an insult to the Executive, which must have
been thought, by those making it, to be capable of so un-
worthy an act. This attack on the independence of the
judge he regards as indicating the sort oi regime which
the New School would place us under, if it had the
power.

Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto, came, in turn, under

THE ASSAULT ON THE OLD LIBERTIES.

X85

i

the fire of the Ultramontane skirmishers of the Province
of Quebec. He had publicly stated* that in Ontario the
priests are forbidden to turn the altar into a tribune from
which to deliver political harangues or to menace elec-
tors on account of the votes they may give at political
elections ; though they might instruct their parishioners
in their duty to vote for the candidate whom they believe
best capable of advancing the interests of the country.

Several Ultramontane journals, published in the French
language, expressed strong objections to this mode of
managing matters. They reproduced thejoint instructions
of the Bishop of Quebec authorizing the priests to de-
nounce the censures of the Church against electors who
refused to vote as directed by their spiritual advisers.
Among the critics of Archbishop Lynch's letter who argued
the existence of unity on the strength of this difference,
the Courrier du Canada was prominent. f

And the Courrier was not long in receiving its reward.
Before the end of April, it obtained from tlie Pope a mark
of distinction which is usually reserved for writers who
are in special favour a*: the Vatican. The Cotirrier an-
nounces that: ' Our Holy Father the Pope has accorded
to us, in our quality of Catholic journalist, the apostolic
benediction for us and our family to the third generation,
with permission to read the books in the Index without
exception.'

The Rev. Alexis Pelletier, ranking Archbishop Lynch
with the ecclesiastics of Quebec on whom the viols of his
wrath had recently been poured, turned his arms for a mo-
ment, as if by way of warning, against the chief ecclesiasti-
cal dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church in Ontario. A
pamphlet written by him under the name oi Liberalisme,X
elaborates, at great length, the views of Bishop Bourget.

♦ Letter to the Hon. A. Mackenzie, Jan., 1876.

■f Feb. 2, 1876, and subsequent issues,

I Coup D'Oeil sur le Liberalisme European et sur Liberalisme Canadien.

286

ROME IN CANADA.

In an article in Le Fmnc-Parlettr, this writer, under his
well-known nom de guerre, gave Archbishop Lynch a
first warning. ' It is evidently impossible,' he says, 'to
discover the slightest trait of resemblance between the
Catholic Liberal, which Pius IX. has painted for us and
that which Mgr. of Toronto shows us. Nowthe infallible
doctor cannot err, and it is he to whom we must listen.
When he raises the cry of alarm the danger is really
where he signals it, and it is such as he sees It to be.'

It is evident from these indications that the turn of the
Archbishop of Toronto had come. His assailants have,
GO far, succeeded in silencing every one in the Canadian
Chiirch whom they have attacked. But Archbishop
Lynch would be in a measure protected by the barrier of
a language foreign to the people with whom he has to
deal. Still, his critics would fail in the faculty of invention
for which they have hitherto been remarkable, and in the
persistency with which they have invariably followed up
their attacks, should they not find some means of making
Archbishop Lynch exceedingly uncomfortable, or reduc-
ing him to that silence which they have imposed on so
many others. It is a noteworthy coincidence that, soon
alter the appearance of this criticism, the Archbishop
ceased to favour the public with his views on these ques-
tions, which had been given in a non-official shape, as a
correspondent of a public journal, in which capacity, the
complaint was made, his words could not be taken as
those of a bishop.

The bishops of Quebec never interfere to check the
violence of the clergy when it is directed against the com-
mon enemy, against the liberty of electors, against the
rights of the civil authority. A priest maj' preach and
teach that civil laws are to be disregarded, if the Church
pronounces against them, with the absolute certainty of
receiving episcopal approval.

IX.
CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

It is no part of my plan to attempt to solve the ques-
tion : ' What is Catholic Liberalism ; is it religious or
political, or partly religious and partly political ? '
Nor does it matter whether Catholic Liberalism
has been dogmatically defined, as some contend, or
not, as Dr. De Angelis affirms. What is important to
know is in what way the bishops, the priests, and the
clerical press of the Province of Quebec treat the ques-
tion ; for what they say will be believed by a majority ol
those whom they are in a position to influence, and the
terrorism of pastoral letters, political sermons, and decla-
mations of the press will produce a deep impression on
the minds of the Roman Catholic laity.

It is the custom of the Ultramontane writers to treat
Catholic Liberalism as the synonym of Gallicanism.
There may be some resemblance between the two, but
they certainly are not identical. Article seventy-seven of
the Syllabus stigmatizes as Liberalism the toleration of
other modes of worship than that of the Romish Church ;
and the next article denies that it is a wise provision of
the law to allow persons who take up their residence in
Catholic countries to enjoy the public exercise of their
own worship. Article seventy-nine denounces the civil
liberty of every mode of worship as of corrupt and im-
moral tendency, which leads to the propagation of
indifferentism.

Whether this be a dogmatic definition or not, it is cer-
tainlj' not identical with the principles of Gallicanism,

i88

ROME IN CANADA.

which, whatever their merits, did not object to the national
Church being the only tolerated Church in the State.
Neither in Canada nor in Louisiana was any other reli-
gion tolerated under the French rule.

The fifth Provincial Council of Quebec compares
CathoHc Liberalism to the serpent that crawled in the
Garden of Eden, when it sought to compass the downfall
of the human race. But this hackneyed figure, which
constantly appears in this kind of literature, hideous and
repulsive as it is, does not contain a definition. One of
the objects ol this error, we are told, is to alter the con-
stitution of the Church, and to break the ties which unite
the people to the bishops and the bishops to the Vicar of
Christ. This statement involves the definition of the
limits between the civil and the ecclesiastical power.
This the present Archbishop of Quebec, Mgr. Taschereau,
in promulgating the decrees of the fifth Provincial
Council, admits, and he contends that the Church alone
has the power to decide. And this doctrine every Roman
Catholic is commanded to hold and proclaim, in journal,
book, and pulpit. The term ' Catholic writers ' is defined
by the Council as including those who treat on politics as
well as on religion.

* Pretended Catholics,' says the Archbishop, * who in
the meantime call themselves Liberals, are more danger-
ous than declared enemies,' because, whether they intend
it or not, they favour those who design the destruction of
the Church. There is about them an appearance of pro-
bity and sound doctrine which deceive honest men.'

When, as happens in this case, the word Liberal is
imperfectly qualified, the bias of a party writer has no
difficulty in treating it as a disapproval of Liberalism,
pure and simple.

The eight bishops of Quebec unite in telling the faith-
ful* that Catholic Liberalism, according to • Pius IX.,

♦ Lettre Pastorale, 22 Sept., 1875.

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

189

I,

is the most incensed and the nriost dangerous enemy of
the divine constitution of the Church.' And the Pope
has since, in a brief, approved of that letter. After allud-
ing to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the bishops
add : * It tries to glide imperceptibly in the most holy
places ; it fascinates the eyes of the most clear-seeing ; it
poisons the hearts ol the most simple, that they may
change their faith in the authority ot the most sovereign
Pontiff.'

The partisans of this error, we read further, ' applaud
the civil power wherever it invades the sanctuary ; they
attempt by every means to induce the laithful to tolerate,
if not approve, iniquitous laws. Enemies the more dan-
gerous, because they often, without even being aware of it
(sans mOme en avoir la conscience), favour the most
perverse doctrines, which Pius IX. has so well character-
ized in calling them ' a chimerical conciliation between
truth and error.'

* The Catholic Liberal is reassured by the fact that he
still possesses certain Catholic principles, certain pious
practices, a certain fund of faith and of attachment to the
Church, but he carefully closes his eyes to the abyss
which error has scooped in his heart, and by which he
is silently devoured. He still vaunts, to all comers, his
religious convictions, and is displeased when he is told
that he has embraced dangerous principles ; he is perhaps
sincere in his blindness, God onl)' knows ! But side by
side with these fair appearances, there is a large stock of
pride, which causes him to believe that he has more
prudence and sagacity than those to whom the Holy
Ghost has given the mission and the grace to teach and
govern the faithful : he is seen to censure without scruple
the acts and documents of the highest religious authority.
Under pretext of taking away causes of dissension, and
reconciling the Gospel to the actual progress of society,

I go

ROME IN CANADA.

he enters the service of Caesar and of those who invent
pretended rights in favour of a false Hberty : as if light
and darkness could exist together, and as if truth ceased
to be truth when violence had been done to it, by taking
away its true meaning and despoiling the immutability
inherent in its nature.'

The bishops conclude by saying : ' In presence of five
apostolic biiefs denouncing Catholic Liberalism as abso-
lutely mcompatible with the doctrine of the Church,
though it has not yet been formally condemned as a
heresy, it is no longer permitted in conscience to be
a Liberal Catholic'

In the muffled sound of these words are conveyed to us
with sufficient distinctness the idea, ever dear to the
Church, of reaction, and a determination to suppress all
independent opinions and action, even in the sphere of
legislation.

The joint letter of the Episcopate of Quebec was thought
by Bishop Bourget to require to be supplemented by a
pastoral of his own.* This bishop, as is his manner,
dealt with the subject in a more pronounced way than
his colleagues had done. ' Catholic Liberalism,' he
defines to be ' a body of social and religious doctrines
which tend to free, more or less, minds of the speculative
order, and citizens in the practical order, from rules
which tradition had everywhere imposed upon them.' In
answer to the questions, ' What is Catholic Liberalism ?
What is Liberal Catholicism ? ' he replies : ' It is a
false and dangerous sentiment ; it is a party rising up
and in fact conspiring against the Church and civil
society. A Catholic Liberal is a man who participates,
in any degree v/hatever, in this sentiment, or with this
party, or in this doctrine, who is sick in proportion
as he is liberal, and healthy in proportion as he is

♦ Feb. I, 1876.

■

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

191

Catholic. Liberalism tends always to subordinate the
rights of the Church to the rights of the State, by
prudent and sagacious means, and even to separate
the Church from the State, desiring to have a free
Chufcli in a free State.'t Liberalism contends that
the clergy alone is called upon to defend religion, and that
this mission has not been consigned to laymen ; while the
Pope declares, in his encyclical of 1853, that laymen, in
taking this part, perform a filial duty from the moment
that they combat under the direction of the clergy.
Modern Liberalism pretends that religion ought to be
confined to the sacristy, and not go beyond the limits ol
private life. But the Pope declares that Catholics can
effectually defend their rights and their liberties only by
taking part in all public affairs.'

By these characteristic traits, Bishop Bourget assures
lis. Catholic Liberalism may be known. But he still
thinks it necessary further to heighten the colour of the
picture, in which Liberalism is made to stand forth as
' nothing else than the demon which, hidden under the
form of the ancient serpent, and armed with its rage, its
malice, and its ruse, is found in our midst attempting our
destruction.' But no cobra, no copper-head, no boa con-
strictor, 'is half so dangerous as the serpent Liberalism.'
It is a serpent ' a thousand times more dangerous than
all the other serpents in the world, because it poisons
souls.' As a means of avoiding the evils of Liberalism,
each one of the faithful is instructed to say in the inmost
recesses of his soul : ' I hear my cure ; my cun- hears the
bishop ; the bishop hears the Pope ; the Pope hears our
Saviour Jesus Christ, by whom he ib assisted by the
Divine Spirit to render him infallible in the teaching and
government of his Church.'

Dr. De Angelis, who was called upon to pronounce an

+ This is the expression ofCavour.

192

ROME IN CANADA.

opinion on this pastoral, does not admit that Mgr. Bour-
get intended to proclaim the infallibiHty of the bishops
and the cures. What De Angelis meant, if he had
thought it prudent to be more outspoken, no doubt was
that such a claim could not be allowed. That the bishop
meant no less than this, what he went on to add seems
to leave no doubt. The priests, his argument Avas, had
merely reproduced the instructions given by the Pope
and the bishops against Liberalism. ' It is therefore,'
said the bishop, ' the whole clergy who speak by the
mouth of each of its ministers. Thus disrespect shown
to this organ of the clergy is disrespect for the whole
clergy ; it is disrespect of Jesus Christ, whose ambassa-
dors they are ; it is disrespect of the Eternal Father.'

' But what are we to think,' the bishop goes on to ask,
of those who, on the hustings, at the polls, in the tri-
bune or in the press, dare to make disrespectful allusions
o the person or the character of the priest, to regard
with disrespect or cause othei's to regard with disrespect
his word and his conduct, with a view of depriving him,
if possible, of the esteem and consideration which he en-
joys among the people, and how ought they to be treated ? '
The answer was, in effect, that such conduct properly in-
curred th "! lesser excommunication.

The bishops, in their joint letter, and Bishop Bourget
in his separate pastoral, tell us that the superstructures
they respectively raised have for their base the several
apostolic briefs in which Pius IX. has denounced Catho-
lic Liberalism, and to which another specially relating to
Canada has since been added. But, if we turn to these
documents, we shall find that the nuance in which the
question is enveloped does not entirely clear away. The
truth seems to be that, in the absence of a dogmatic defi-
nition, much latitude is allowed in the definition of Catho-
lic Liberalism. The Pope, in receiving a deputation of

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

193

French Catholics on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his
Pontificate, said : ' What affects your country and pre-
vents it meriting the benedictions of heaven is a melange
of principles. What I fear is not the wretches of the
Commune of Paris, true demons of hell, who walk about
on the face oi the earth. No, it is not that ; what I fear
is this miserable policy of Catholic Liberalism, which is
the real scourge.' ,

According to a brief of July 28, 1873, the condemned
opinions are sometnnes held by honest and pious Catho-
lics. ' Liberal opinions,' we read in this brief, ' are ac-
cepted by many honest and pious Catholics, whose leli-
gion and authority easily draw men's minds towards them
and incline them towards very pernicious opinions.'
When there is no want of piety the fault would seem to
lay in the politics ; not the politics of any particular
party, but the politics of all parties which are opposed to
reaction and sacerdotalism.

Abbe Paquet bids us seek the definition of Liberalism
in the Encyclical of 1864 ; ' that immortal monument of the
wisdom, penetration, zeal, and courage of Pius IX.'* In
the Syllabus of errors accompanying the Encyclical, Pius
IX. denounced Liberalism. t

The occasions which gave rise to these propositions
being characterized as errors may here be recalled. In

♦ Le Libt'ralisme.

+ Article yy. ' In the present day, it is no longer expedient that the Catholic reli-
eion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other
modes of worship.

78. ' Whence it has been wisely provided by law, in some countries called Catholio
that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own
worship.

79. ' Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every mode of worship, and the
full power given to all of overtly and publicly manifesting their opinions and ideas, of
all kinds whatsoever, conduce more easily to corrupt the morais and minds of the peo-
ple, and to the propagation of the pest of indifferentism.

80. ' The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with,
progress, liberalism, and civilization as lately introduced.'

i ia

194

ROME IN CANADA.

J

1 85 1, Pius IX. entered into a concordat with the King of
Spain, which stipulated, among other things, that the
Roman Catholic religion should be the only religion of
the Spanish nation, to the exclusion of every other form
of worship, and that this religion should enjoy all the
prerogatives accorded to it by the canons ; that in all the
schools of Spain the teaching should be entirely conform-
able to the Roman doctrine ; above all, that the bishops, in
the exercise of their episcopal functions, as well as in
whatever relates to the rights and the exercise of eccle-
siastical authority, should enjoy the full liberty with which
the canons invest them ; that the Church might acquire
additional property in whatever way it could (a qiielqiie
litre que ce soil), and that the rights and property of the
Church should be inviolable.

In this world of mutable things and ever varying
opinion, it was not strange that a change came over the
Government of Spain ; a change expressed in terms which
negatived the stipulations of the concordat by the asser-
tion that, m the present day, it is no longer expedient
that the Catholic religion shall be held as the only reli-
gion of the State, to the exclusion of all other modes of
worship. The Spanish Government went still farther:
it decreed the sale of ecclesiastical property, forbade the
bishops to confer sacred orders, and passed other laws of
a similar tendency.

The questions thus dealt with were not exclusively reli-
gious : they were politico-religious. The annulling of the
concordat was made a subject of complaint by the Pope ;
but concordats, being human things, are not eternal, and
the Court of Rome has not hesitated to abrogate a con-
cordat when its interest lay in so doing. Pius IV., to
quote an example, annulled the concordat with France,
on the ground that it was too favourable to the nation, as
represented by the king. And it was not till the Pope

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

195

was made to feel the inconvenience of being deprived of
the annates and the revival of the Pragmatic Sanction,
that he consented to renew the concordat in 1562.* One
of the most unpopular things done by the Government of
the Restoration was the new concordat into which it
entered in 1817. It was regarded as anti-national, and de-
structive of the liberties of the national Church. The popu-
lar feeling was so strong and so unanimous that ministers
soon ceased to defend the act they had advised ; and the
publication of the Pope's bull founded on the concordat, and
making a new division of the dioceses, increased the pub-
lic indignation. t A Government with Ultramontane lean-
ings may sometimes agree to a concordat which it is im-
possible long to maintain.

The history of the seventy-eighth article of the Sylla-
bus is this : The Government of New Grenada, in
1854, promulgated a law by which priests and bishops
who had been convicted of crime by a lay tribunal were
forbidden to continue to exercise ecclesiastical functions,
and their charges were to pass into other hands. Gregory
XVI. protested, but protested in vain. Two additional laws
were proposed, one for the flbclition of tithes, the other
to guarantee to immigrants coming from every country
the public exercise of their religion. Pius IX. protested,
but without effect. The ball kept rolling: the suppres-
sion of religious orders was decreed, the expulsion of the
Jesuits confirmed, the ecclesiastical law of Rome abolish-
ed. Bishops and archbishops were made amenable to
lay tribunals, and the choice of priests was vested in the
parishioners. Unrestricted freedom of discussion was
legahzed. The clergy, resisting the law, suffered the
penalty of disobedience. In these acts. Abbe Paquet tells
us, is to be found that modern Liberalism which Pius IX.

* Abbi Millot. Histoire de France,
t Leonard Gallois. Histoire de France.
13

196

ROME IN CANADA

denounced in article seventy-eight of the Syllabus. Most
of these acts were politico-religious ; that which legalized
free discussion was purely political.

The seventy-ninth article of the Syllabus was a protest
against the proclamation of the freedom ol worship and
the free expression of opinion by the Spanish Govern-
ment, and the restrictions under which the bishops were
placed not to caiise the publication of their pastorals in
the churches. There were non-juring bishops, who
showed that they were not of the nation in which they
lived by refusing, at the bidding of the Pope, to take an
oath of fidelity to the Republican constitution. And if
they had taken the oath, what guarantee would there
have been that the Pope would not, under the circum-
stances, have assumed to release them from its obligation ?
Sucli things ha,ve been done, even in Canada. This is a
weiglity charge, not to be credited on doubtful evidence.
The evidence is not doubtful,' admits of no doubt. The
authority is contained in the permission given by Pope
Urban VIIl. to the Provincial of the RecoUets of Paris,
March 25, 1635, with power to communicate it to the
missionaries that might be sent to Canada.* It is true
that this authority was to be exercised only for just cause ;
but of what constituted a valid cause the ecclesiastic must
be the judge.

If to forbid or permit the free exercise of worship has
its religious side, it is not the less a matter of civil right ;
while freedom of discussion may be political or religious,-
according to the nature of the subject discussed. It
follows that in condemning modern Liberalism, the Pope

* Relaxandi juramentaob instas causas Communicandi has facultates

In toto vel in parte Vicario seu viceprffifecto, ac alys missionary's ejusdem orainis ad
Canadam Americas Septcntrionalis Provinciam transmissis, et ab eodem Provin-
ciali ejusque definitoris, cum scitu, et consensu Nuty [Nunti] Galliarum approbante
transmittendis et concessas revocandi toties quotics opus fuerit. — See the docu-
ment in Sagard Histoirc du Canada. Paris 1636.

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

»97

included in his catalogue of errors political as well as
religious matters.

The Pope, after the loss of his civil power, was advised
to reconcile himselfv. 'h modern progress. Liberalism, and
civilization. The eighteenth article of the Syllabus con-
tains his answer to the invitation. The Pope was asked
to place himself in accord with three things, and the
demand that he should do so he stigmatized as an error
of modern Liberalism. Modern progress and civilization
include political amelioration, and by no fair rule of inter-
pretation can they be assumed to have an exclusively
religious aspect.

After years of dispute, in which rivers of ink had been
shed and tons of paper polluted, Pope Pius IX. issued a
brief, September i8, 1876, which was intended to put an
end to the conflict. It was addressed to the Bishop of.
Three Rivers, and has been communicated by other
bishops, pr' imably the whole of them, to the clergy ot
their re' .ve dioceses. In this brief, Pius IX. applauds
the zeal with which the bishops of Quebec, in the joint
letter, warned the people against the errors of ' Liberal-
ism called Catholic' The effect of this is to adopt what
they said under this head. What that is we have already
seen.

Mgr. Birtha gives a definition of the question which
it is not easy to reject, when he describes Catholic Lib-
eralism as politico-religious. t ' Who does not see,' says
this ecclesiastic, 'that it is necessary, at whatever cost,,
to unveil and combat the enterprise of those who desire
to form a political party, in direct opposition to the teach-
ings of the Pope, whose special mission seems to be to
unmask and destroy this dangerous sect of Catholic Liber-
als ? What frightful evils has not this sect, filled with
the cunnmg and imposture of the ancient serpent, brought

+ Lettres ;i un deputi'. ;

igS

ROME IN CANADA.

!

upon the Catholic kingdoms of Europe ? Shall we un-
dergo a like fate ? Yes, without doubt, if we do not com-
bat this insidious sect, wherever it dares to raise its
head.'

If Bishop Pinsonneault did not assist in framing the de-
cree of the fifth Provincial Council in which Catholic
Liberalism is condemned, he may be allowed to be a
capable expositor of the language employed by his col-
leagues in the Episcopate. Practically, his is the inter-
pretation which the term Catholic Liberal receives in
Quebec. The result is, that the Church has taken the
field on the side of political reaction, and as its teaching
claims an infallible origin, there is danger that nearly the
whole political power of the Province will soon be wield-
ed by a clerical army. With the opposition which such a
line of conduct has begun to invoke has come the opening
battle in the inevitable conflict which has been predicted.
The first clash of arms has been heard in the stern chal-
lenge which the exercise of undue clerical influence over
elections has met in the courts.

On another occasion* Bishop Pinsonneault said: ' The
Catholic Liberal professes to believe the true faith, the
same as other Catholics ; but while believing the Catho-
lic dogma, he absolutely rejects the intervention of the
Church in human concerns. He does not wish that the
priest should occupy himself with temporal affairs. He
is willing to tolerate the Church so long as it confines it-
self to the temple and the sacristy. He wishes to restrain
it from expressing itself on questions which belong to
human politics. Therefore the Catholic Liberal excludes
God from civil affairs. It is an error condemned by the
Popes and the Councils. Liberalism being an error,
those who declare themselves Liberals ought not to be

Analyse du sermon de Sa Grandeur Monseigneur A Pinsonneault, Eveque de
Birtha, prononce dans I'Eglise de St. Henri des Tanneries, Dimanche, le 4 Juillet, 1873.

"^PWWeg-^MMPffci

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM. igft

followed or encouraged. What,' he asks, * is the remedy
for the evils of which Liberalism is the cause ? ' And he
answers that, ' since the Liberal idea is an idea of revolt,
obedience is the only means to prevent its proving con-
tagious ; ' and that that obedience is due ' to the author-
ity established by God, the Church.'

The statement of Bishop Pinsonneault that the Catholic
Liberal absolutely rejects the intervention of the priest
in human affairs is, like most ot the statements which
come to us with the flavour of infallibility, gross exaggera-
tion. There are many human affairs which are not poli-
tical ; and though the Catholic Liberal denies to the
priest the right to rnterfere in parliamentary elections
with his spiritual authority and spiritual censures, no one
denies that the priest, as a citizen, is at liberty to exercise
his political rights.

As speak the bishops, so speaks the priest. In thefollow-
ing strain M,0'Donnell berates 'the apostles of modern civ-
ilization: "t 'Your civilization reposes on a principle at once
false, destructive, detestable. You desire to form the
child in the pattern of your own heart and intelligence —
to rob it of its faith, its soul, its God — and turn it into a
brute. For you matrimony is a thing which the first ca-
price may rupture. You desire the destruction of the fam-
ily, " No connection,"' you cry, "between the Church and
the State, between the spiritual and the temporal ; '" and
it is for the purpose of loading the Church with chains,
and rendering it the slave of the civil power, that you an-
nounce the monstrous error. Not only do you wish that
God should be a stranger in the State, but that the State
should serve as the pedestal for the satellites of Satan.
Anarchy, intellectual, moral, and religious, seems to you
thefittingcomplement of these diabolical doctrines. Your

+ Sermon prononct' par M. O'Donnell u I'occasion du sacre de Sa Grandeur Mgr
Moreau, 1876.

aoo

ROME IN CANADA.

liberty of the press is the oppression of the mind and the
heart, its weapons lies and immorality ; liberty of con-
science is equal liberty for truth and error ; liberty of
speech is anarchy, license, the right of rebellion, and your
political liberalism is the liberal theory of the relation
which the Church and State should bear to one another.'

Father O'Donnell's picture of modern civilization is a
caricature, or an invention, painted unlike the reality,
for the purpose of making his subject hateful.

A sermon preached on the occasion of the consecration
of a bishop would miss its mark if it contained nothing
on the subject of the episcopal function. Father O'Don-
nell did not forget the principal part he was required to
play. The bishop's mission, in the direction ot consci-
ences, he described as all pervading; it extended to the
whole man : 'his heart, mind, will, his civil, religious, and
domestic duties.' Could there be a more melancholy pic-
ture of a slave than a man thus bandaged by episcopal
cords ? If the duty of directing consciences extends so
far, and were so far practically extended, the minds of the
faithful would have roonj for nothing but the impression
made upon them in the confessional ; and the power of
the Church would be supreme, in the civil as well as in
the ecclesiastical domain. Rome would then become an
universal monarchy, all divested though she is of ' the
patrimony of St. Peter.'

Is it surprising that such pretensions as these should
fill men's minds with alarm, and that the alarm should be
raised that a great contest between Ultramontanism
and the civil power is at hand ?

Much of the evidence adduced by Ultramontane wri-
ters to prove that Vicar-General Raymond was a Liberal
Catholic, guilty of the high crime of Gallicanism, is utter-
ly worthless. If he abstained from quoting Ultramon-
tane writers, such as Veuillot, Morel, Maupied, Keller,

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

201

it was held to be proof that he did not share their opin-
ions. And if he did not write against the doctrines of the
Univers or Mgr. de Tulle, private conversations — such is
the system of espionage in vogue — in which he spoke
against them were not held sacred. Where the Pope had
given his blessing, as in the case of Louis Veuillot, the
Vicar-General was not at liberty to refuse his admiration.
So his assailants concluded.

Under pressure of the attacks of which he became the
victim, there came a time when M. Raymond was obliged
to deny the charge of Liberal Catholicism. He could
not afford to be vmder the reproach that he belonged to
a class of men whom the Pope had described as hav-
ing inflicted greater injuries on French society than the
Commune of Paris. ' When,' tlie indictment against
him ran, ' he preached liberty of conscience, coiunic fait,
when he strove to calm the fears which the perils of Gal-
licanism and Catholic Liberalism had excited, he grievous-
ly pained Catholic Canada.'* He protested his attach-
ment to Roman doctrines ; but this, his enemies said,
was acommon refuge of Catholic Liberalism. Montalem-
bert had admitted tliat Gallicanism had long been hope-
lessly dead, so utterly extinct that, in 1844, it would not
have been possible to find, in all France, four bishops
who would have signed the four articles of 1682 ; and yet
withal Montalembert had the sin of Gallicanism on his
head. Vicar-General Raymond denied the existence of
Liberalism in Canada, t proclaimed aloud his abhor-
rence of the ' perfidious error ;" but he did not the less

* Binan.

\ And for this avowal, in due time, came his fitting reward. On the 21st of July
1876, the Pope, by an apostolic rescript, appointed him domestic prelate of his house.
The honour is for him ; the conquest may not the less be for the Ultramontanes who
drove him to this confession. Abbe Pelletier says : Le St. Office, d'apres les explica-
tions qui lui furent longuement donnres par M. I'abbi' Raymond sur sa lecture inti-
tulee : ' L'action de Marie dans la Societe,' s'est abstenu de la mal noter.

2oa

ROME IN C \NADA.

teach Liberal doctrines in his lectures, for though he con-
demned liberty of conscience, comvie droit, he defended
it, comtnefait. Therefore, in the eyes of the Pope he was
worse than the Communists oi Paris. When the Pope
pronounced against liberty of conscience, no good Catho-
lic is at liberty to speak in its favour.

Such are the doctrines oi the Ultramontane writers of
Quel)ec in the present day. To state them is of itself
sufficient to excite horror and execration.

If the Encyclical Quanta Cura, which condemned the
so-called errors contained in the Syllabus, left the Liberal
Catholics no standing ground, it did not, as M. Raymond
found it prudent to say, at once bring the submission of
all Canadian Catholics ;* but the peril of speaking against
it is exemplified in the fate of Le Pays, of Montreal, to
which it proved so serious a sin as to cost it its life. The
submission may in many cases have amounted only to
silence; a silence which did not at once become, if it is
now, absolute and complete.

• But,' says the Vicar-General, ' as the state of men's
minds would not permit the denial (lie pennet pas qn'on
louche) of religious liberty (liherte dc cultes), in certain
States, without detriment to society and to the Church
herself, it is permitted to tolerate, to defend, and to swear
to observe, in the constitution, which forms a fundamental
law,t and that in virtue of the principle that the tolera-
tion of an order of things or of evil, which under certain
circumstances is to be feared, is permissible if it be a good
relatively to an opposite order of things. '|

The meaning of this is that it all depends upon the
power of Rome to deny religious liberty to others ; and
though the liberty which simply refrains from attempting

* Nulle parole n'est elevee de leur part en opposition tV celle du Vicaire du Christ
+ The Pope refused this in the case of Spain.
J Rtvue Canadicttiic, i8C6.

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

203

what there are no means of accomphsUng is not very
deep, its assertion proved highly offensive to the latter
day Ultramontanes.

One ot the Vicar-General's antagonists^ argues : * it a.-
vain to say that, in Canada, we are obliged to tolerate
the liberty of worship; that it is to this liberty we owe
our Catholic francliises: we reply that thore is an enor-
mous diflercnce between loleratiug and dcfeiidiufr an nhuse.
The Catholics are entitled to say : our Church is free
because liberty of worship exists, but that it is not equally
permissible to grant liberty of worship to dissidents by
invoking the liberty of the Catholic Church , we further
reply that the Catholic Church alone has the right to
liberty, because she alone is in possession of the truth ;
we reply finally that if M. Raymond desires to remain
within the bounds of truth, and not fall into the error of
the Catholic Liberal, he ought to confine himself to teach-
ing that it is allowable to tolerate, when it is impossible
to do otherwise, liberty of worship, of conscience, ot
speech, and of the press, but not to defend it ; ior to
defend a thing is to recognize its rights : but it is never
allowable to recognize error, though it may be endowed
with forces and powers that give it predominance. It
this liberty cannot be restrained, it may be left in peace ;
but though tolerated it must never be defended, that is
to say, cause made on its behalf. If it (error) proclaims
liberty ot worship, and silences (t'touffe) you because you
are Catholic, call, as is its constant habit, attention to the
liberties she grants, even invoke them if necessary, but do
not make the apotheosis of these liberties, that is to saj',
do not defend them or make cause in their behalf; for,
let us say once more that to defend is to recognize their
rights, which they can possess only in proportion as they
are devoted to the exclusive service of truth.'

§ Binan, Broch. Anon. Montreal, 1873.

204 ROME IN CANADA,

A want of candour is not the vice of this defenller of
intolerance. There is a terrible and startling frankness
in what he says. The rules of conduct he prescribes may
easily be recognized as old familiars in actual experience.
The difference is, that the ordinary disguises are thrown
away, and the policy of Rome stands confessed in its most
repulsive form. It is an advantage to be in possession of
the programme, pure and simple, of the party in the
Roman Catholic Church which, in the Province of Que-
bec, has reduced the liberal and national element to
silence.

The Liberal School of French Canadian Cath(jlics
was fairly represented by Vicar-General I^aymond. His
defence of religious liberty, under the circumstances and
conditions already stated — where it had long been in
existence -isingenious, and, all thingsconsidcred, not lack-
ing in a certain element of courage. He found that, in
many States, a large part of the people profess wliat he
considers false religions. The liberty they are permitted
to exercise is held by the right of possession, and some-
times by tlie right of the strongest ; and in spite of the
errors which they profess, he charitably allows that the
teaching of the divine morality had not been entirely lost
upon them, and that what thev have retained will aid in
the conservation of society.

In this state of things, liberty to dissidents to worship
God in their own way Vicar-General Raymond allows to
be a relative good. To proscribe them, under a non-
Catholic Government, would be impossible ; and under
such Governments, the liberty of worship is altogether in
favour of the Church, and the best thing it can do is to
profit by it.

Even in countries where the faithful are in a majo-
rity, repression, besides being odious, would violate civil
rights long since acquired, would bring about great disas-

CATHOLIC LIBFRALISM.

205

ters, and would certainly increase the number of dissidents
from the Church of Rome; it would transmute into vio-
lent hatred feelings which do not possess a character of
pronounced hostility; it would retard 01 prevent conver-
sions which, in a state oi peace, would take place; be-
sides, it would lead to the persecution of K(jnian (*atho-
lics in all countries where they are fcebh;.

For these reasons, th? Vicar-General arj^ues, liberty of
worship ouf^ht not to be disturbed where it has already
been established. ' Nodotdit,' his orthodoxy or |)rudence,
or both combined, make him add, this liberty 'is injurious
to the salvati(jn of s(juls ;' but as he did not ij^iiort; the
forces of existing society, he held fast to the conclusion
that 'the attempt to put the opposite principle into prac-
tice would be a great evil, lliercfoie it ought ikjI to be
made.'

Vicar-General Raymond long represented the modera-
tion, the caution, the wisdom of the old Canadian School-
He knew how to wait when action would have been
rashness; and to move, when it was' prudent to move,
with caution. In mixed questions, wliich have a civil as
well as an ecclesiastical side, he knew the danger of
weunding the susceptibilities ot tlie citizens of another
faith ; and he was not wilhng to press inopportunely doubt-
ful points, at the risk ol a repulse or a defeat. With this
temporizing and tolerating spirit, it is difficult to see why
he was not as good a Catholic as the loudest biawler in
the opposite camp. If his policy was safe for the Church
ot Rome, it was well fitted to lull opposition and put to
sleep, outside of the Church, that vigilance which the
opposite policy of aggression in arousing.

' Away with this parody of the gospel ! ' cry, in full
chorus, the whole pack of Mgr. Bourget's ecclesiastical
coursers. ' Out upon this prudence, miserable counter-
feit of truth !' The true weapons of the Church, they

2o6

ROME IN CANADA.

insist, are protect and anathema ; and the free use which
Pius IX. has made of them offers the only safe example
lor imitation. ' The prudence of the Vicar-General is the
prudence of the flesh, and his infallibility is the infalli-
bility of inopportuneness, whicii the Vatican Council has
thrust back into the abyss of fire, out of which it had
been vomited.' *

'Libertyof conscience'— when proof is needed of so start-
ling a proposition as this, that it is the bounden du<"y of civil
governments to suppress the liberty ot conscience in favour
of the Church of Rome, it is better to quote textually
— " Liberty of conscience then existed everywhere, by
law or in fact; in France, in England, in Italy, in Austria,
in Belgium, in Spain, m all the countries of Europe, ot
Asia, of Africa, of Oceanica, of America, except the coun-
tries where the religion of the State was pagan, schis-
matic, or heretic, everywhere there was liberty oF con-
science. It was therefore liberty of conscience, exist-
ing legally or in fact, which Pius IX. condemned,
and which he called upon princes and people to abolish
for ever. It was not an imaginary evil, which had yet to
happen, but a real and present evil which Pius IX. com-
batted in liberty of conscience. It was therefore M. de
Montalembert and the whole Liberal School that Pius IX.
struck when he dealt that withering blow at liberty of
conscience. And when M. Raymond, in i86g, proclaimed
this same liberty of conscience, as Montalembert had
done before, it was a doctrine reprobated (reprouvee) by
the Holy See which he preached and celebrated. Now,
to preach that which the Chair of St. Peter condemns
and rejects is Gallicanism and Liberalism, or we know
not what it is."

It is a fact of supreme interest to be noted that the

♦ The language used is stronger than this : VinfalUbilitf de I'inopportuniti, cette
infallibilite que le Vatican Council arefoulu dans I'abime de t'enfer d'ou elle venait. —
Binan, p. 32.

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

207

Ultramontanes of Quebec openly proclaim that it is the
duty of the civil government to obey the instructions of
the Pope to suppress liberty of conscience and to deny
the right of openly professing any other religion than that
of Rome. Happily they do not possess, and in this
country never will possess, the supreme power necessary
to put this monstrous doctrine into practice. But the
Ultramontane press, Ultramontane priests, and Ultra-
montane professors in the chief seats of learning, cannot
unite in teaching the duty of intolerance without giving a
tinge to future thought that may lead to disastrous
results.

These are the doctrines which, in Quebec, are now
gaining the mastery. Dr. Newman disavows them ; the
Secretary-General ol the Vatican Council lacked the
audacity to stand up in the face of Europe and defend
them.

' True prudence,' we are further told, ' consists in de-
siring only what God desires ; ' and what this is the Pope
alone can know. If the command of the ecclesiastic were
to do evil, unhappy would be the lot of him who had pro-
mised unlimited obedience.

The last pamphlet on this subject is, in some respects,
the most pronounced utterance that has been made. The
Abbe Pelletier finds Liberalism hanging upon every bush
and lurking in every stream. f He finds proof that
Liberalism has more partisans in Canada than is generally
supposed, in the signs of a determination to combat the
undue influence of the clergy in elections ; in the disposi-
tion to deny the right of the Church to take the initiative
in political questions ; in a tendency observable in certain
journals to advocate the separation of Church and State
in our legislation on the liberty of worship and of the
press ; on marriage and education ; on religious corpora-

f Liberalisme Catholique en Europe et Liberalisme au Canada, 1876.

208

ROME IN CANADA.

tions and their property ; on ecclesiastical immunities.
On all these questions, he finds that Liberalism has pro-
duced bitter fruits. The Abbn Pelletier finds further
proof in the unfavourable reception which the Profjramme
(Jatholique met ; for though all Catholics, he tells us, are
strictly bound, by their baptism, to follow the Programme,
the majority oi them, on one pretext or another, refused
to accept it.

Burning proofs of Liberalism M. Pelletier finds in the
refusal to give the Mrtis, who had only rebelled for the
benefit of their countr}, a prompt, full, and complete
amnesty ; in the refusal oi the Federal Parliament to
destroy the common school system of New Brunswick,
over which in fact it had no legislative jurisdiction, in the
interest of sectarianism.

Practically, this is the exposition of Liberalism which
is now so current as to be almost universal in Quebec.
However forced and unreasonable such an interpretation
may be, the intimidating effect on the electors is the same
as it would be if it were true.

The charge of Catholic Liberalism was brought against
Vicar-General Cazeau on the strength of the following
facts : — When the agents of Rome at Quebec thought
the tune had come for putting into practice the prescrip-
tions of the encylical on the subject of the education of
the young, they concluded that the way to do this was
to substitute as text-books the \\\es of the Saints for the
lives of the principal figures in Greek and Roman liistory ;
and essays on the lives of certain saints appeared in the
Coiirriei' dii Catuuln, among others that of ' the heroic
Christian virgin ' Febronia. She was represented as
being despoiled of her garments, in a public place, by
ruffians who assaulted her with intent. M. Cazeau,
scandalized at tlie idea of placing such reading in the
hands of the young, sent a commuiiiqui- to the Voiirrler

CATHOLIC LIBERALISM.

209

Stating that he had met with nothing in Pagan authors
which sinned against modesty so much as this statement
in the life of a virgin saint. In doing this, his enemies
said, M. Cazeau wounded Christian truth for the profit
of pagan error; as if Christian truth was synonymous
with a narration of an indecent assault, and that in read-
ing Greek and Roman history one runs imminent risk ot
becoming a pagan. For defending classical learning, he
was treated as the most pestiferous of Catholic Liberals.
Though the assailants have so far failed in the part of their
attack which had for its object the substitution of the
li\es of the Saints lor classical authors, they ultimately
obtained success on all other points.

One French Canadian Roman Catholic, who was
educated by priests and among fellow-students many of
whom were afterwards to become priests, calls upon the
Ultramontanes to pause in their headlong career. ' You
wish,' he sajs, 'to organize all Catholics into a single
party, without other tie, without other basis, than that of
religion ; but have you reflected that by that fact alone you
organize the Protestant population as ;i single ])arty, and
that then, instead of peace and harmony, which now exist
among the elements of our Canadian population, you will

bring on war, religious ^var,
wars ? '*

the most frightful of all

* Wilfrid Laurier, M.P. Lecture en Political Liberalism, June 26, 187;, in the
Music Hall, Quebec.

4X0

ROME IN CANADA.

X.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

Rome holds with a death grasp to the dogma of intoler-
ance, and the New School teaches it, in a loud voice, and
with wearisome reiteration. Bishop Bourget, the priest
O'Donnell, the advocate Thibault, Abbe Paquet, and a host
of pamphleteers and anonymous writers, descant at great
length, on the right and the duty of intolerance.

From the lectures of Abbe Pilquet, delivered to the stu-
dents of the University of Laval, -^ let us see how the
rising generation is being prepared to fulfil its mission
and perforfn its duties : what thoughts it is being made
to imbibe, what conduct it is instructed to observe.

The students are told that it is not in France, not m
Spain, not in Germany, still less in the New World, that
the true doctrine regarding liberty is to be found but
at Rome ; Rome, the only guide which Laval acknow-
ledges in the teaching of philosophy and theology. The
highest ambition which both the professor and the uni-
versity have is to be the faithful echo of the Roman
doctrine.

The principal maxims of Liberalism, the students are
told, are : liberty of conscience, that is, to believe or not
to believe ; liberty of worship (culte), that is, to embrace
any religion we think proper ; liberty of the press, that
is, to propagate and defend error as well as truth, evil
as well as good. Liberty of the press is stigmatized as
another name for license. The Abbe leaves the students at
liberty to think ; but they are bound to think the truth as

* La Liberalisme.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

211

it is expounded at Rome, on pain of being deprived of the
right to think at all. To proclaim liberty of thought, in
matters of religion, is an impiety : so teach the doctors
at Rome ; so teaches this doctor of theology at Laval.
God has manifested the truth through the Roman oracles,
and we are bound to accept it, and to believe it in the sole
and only sense in which it has been revealed. * There-
fore, we are bound to believe what God has ceitainly re-
vealed.' ' No man has the right or the liberty to believe
or to refuse to believe what has certainly been revealed
by the God of truth, or by the organ which he has chosen
to promulgate and explain his law ; this right does not
exist.' ' Listen then to the voice of faith manifested bv
the mouths of the Sovereign Pontiffs, the infallible organs
of revealed truth.'

This doctor of theology distinguishes two kinds uf toler-
ance : one civil, the other religous ; one political, the other
theological. Civil tolerance consists in a government
according to its subjects the permission publicly to pro-
fess whatever religion they please. * To say that it is
possible to find salvation in different religions, whether
they be called Catholic, Greek schismatic, Lutheran or
Calvinistic, this is religious or theological toleration.' In
the mouth of an individual, this doctrine, the students are
told, is blasphemous and absurd. On the lips of a sover-
eign or the administrators of a government, it is an error
and an impiety ; because a sovereign or a Government,
ol whatever form, cannot accord what it does not itself
poss'^ss ; the right to do evil, to teach, to believe, or to
profess error. . . .

'Civil laws may, and ought, in certain circumstances, to-
tolerate what God and the Church reprove ; but to create
it, to give it the right of action, never ; to this reason and
faith are opposed.' * Man has neither the right nor the
liberty to refuse to believe, or to choose at his will, be-

it

212

ROME IN CANADA.

tween the different religions ; ' and a sovereign or a gov-
ernment has not, any more than the individual, this right
or this liberty. The chiefs and leaders of a people ought,
like all other men, to respect the inviolable laws imposed
on the human will and intelligence, and to conform them-
selves thereto.

The Abbe does not think it necessary to use further ar-
guments to prove 'that religious toleration is a gross
error, an msult to reason, a blasphemy and an impiety.'
' Everywhere, and at all times, the principle of religious or
dogmatic intolerance,' he confidently announces, ' will
remain master of the position;' for the reason that * it is
the truth,' and ' truth is indestructible and eternal.'
'Those who reproach the Church with being intolerant
of toleration, reproach her with nothing less than her right
of existence.' ' As the Church cannot renounce her
mission without renouncing her existence, she ought al-
ways to anathematize this teaching ' of toleration.

But even the divine intolerance of which Pius IX. and
the Abbe Piiquet are enamoured may sometimes have to
yield to the force of circumstances. The Abbe admits
that there may be circumstances in which the rigid appli-
cation of the principle of intolerance would bring danger
or lead to disaster; and then, we are told, on the author-
ity of Mgr. Audisio, ' truth may cede its place, but not
its right, to error.' There is a scale by which the liberty
of worship may be regulated, according to circumstances ;
but it is a golden rule that nothing which can be withheld
should ever be granted. Liberty of conscience is assum-
ed, according to this School, to be granted when no one
is constrained to profess, in ^ords or fact, a culte which
in his conscience he, rightly or wrongly, regards as false.
Liberty of worship may mean a worship which is con-
fined to the family and in no way obtruded on the public ;
it is relatively public when it is exercised in a place

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

213

where several meet without external publicity, as Juda-
ism and Protestantism have been in the habit of hiding
themselves at Rome.

For reasons of social order, toleration may sometimes
be permitted : ' To prevent evils which might disturb the
peace of society, a government is authorized to permit
civil liberty of worship, and it is even its duty to do so.'
But it is bound, at the same time, to promote the ' true
worship' to the best of its ability. And much prudence
and sagacity must be used to prevent this civil liberty
degenerating into license. In a country where different
religions are professed by considerable portions of the
population, the government, for prudential reasons, may
not insist on that unity of worship which in Spain,
Italy, New Grenada, and Mexico it is bound to enforce.
France, Belgium, Canada may allow some latitude ;
Catholic Governments none. In a word, intolerance is
to be enforced wherever there is power to enforce it ; a
measure of toleration may be allowed where the govern-
ment is not strong enough to withhold it. But the
Church is to hold fast to the sheet anchor of dogmatic
intolerance.

' To sum up,' saj's the Abbe, ' the Church never has
been, and never will be, anything but reasonable.'
And he adds, with unconscious irony : ' Reason neces-
cessarily compels every fair-minded man to accept the
principle of dogmatic intolerance. Would it not,' he
triumphantl}' asks, ' be unreasonable to affirm at one
and the same time the negative and the positive of a
question, or to regard as true two contradictory proposi-
tions ?' And this shows precisely where the Church and
its children are intolerant. And this intolerance ought
to be avowed by every intelligent and reasonable being.
For truth is one, and the Church is the depository of the
truth.' The Abbe floiirishes a double-edged sword ; and

314

ROME IN CANADA.

we venture to say he would be loud in his complaints if
the weapon, wrested out of his hands, were turned against
himself. If he cannot be commended for his liberality,
he deserves our thanks for his abundant candour,
which comes as a warning and reads like a revelation.

No sooner has the Abbe finished his admission that
the toleration of other religions besides that of Rome is
sometimes allowable, to prevent social disasters, than he
turns round and contradicts himself with proofs that the
civil power has no right to grant what he had conceded it
to be, under certain circumstances, its duty to grant. A
government, he suddenly discovers, cannot proclaim
civil liberty of worship, without usurping a right which
it does not possess. ' It is not judge in matters of reli-
gion ; and when it allows civil liberty of worship, it
usurps a right which belongs to the spiritual power ; it
substitutes itself in place of the infallible tribunal of the
Church.' ' To authorize the liberty ot different forms of
worship is to hide a profound indifference for religion
under an appearance of equity and liberality : this is im-
moral ; the living faith is not so accommodating.' * The
supreme law of God, His will as manifested by reason
and revelation, is unity of worship ;' a government,
especially a Catholic government, should do nothing in
the opposite direction : ' on the contrary, it is under an
obligation to protect the true rehgion, to the exclusion of
all false forms of worship ' {cidtes). The Abbe's apotheo-
sis of intolerance embraces both kinds, dogmatic and civil.

Spain is instanced as an example of an entire nation
opposed to allowing the open profession of any religion
except the Roman Catholic, on which assumption the
recent conduct of the nation in proclaiming toleration,
in opposition to the protest of the Pope, affords a suffi-
cient commentary. What was done under the Republic
has, in this respect, been repeated, not without a suspi-

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

215

cioii of bad faith, under the Restoration. Neither at the
one epoch nor the other could the entire nation have been
in favour of prohibiting the profession of all but the
Roman Catholic religion ; for it is impossible to conceive
a government opposing itself to the unanimous wishes of
a whole people.

Mexico, New Granada, Spain, and Italy are here repre-
sented as contesting God's superiority over man, * since
by the mouth of the Church God speaks and commands;'
conduct which is characterized as 'the liberalism of the
atheist, the persecutor, and the tyrant, the liberalism of
Lucifer.'

Such is the teaching of the University of Laval, under
the inspiration of the Vatican decrees.

The Abbe Piiquct, if we may believe his enemies,
gave great offence at Rome for admitting exceptions
to the rule of intolerance. The book, it is alleged,
barely escaped the ban of the Index. If it received
the commendation of the Civitta Cattolica, the Rev.
Alexis Pelletier says, the article was inserted at the
request of M. Paquet, and by an officious person who
escaped the vigilance of the R. R. P. P. editors.

The difference between the doctrines of the Old and the
New School is, that the latter deny that there are any
circumstances or conditions under which religious liberty
is admissible. Even before the Vatican Council was
held, Vicar-General Raymond took the ground that, 'con-
sidered absolutely, religious liberty is an evil, since it
favours error to the loss of souls ; as an abstract principle
or a supposed natural right, it ought to be condemned.
Now, as in previous times, it is desirable that society
should recognize only the one true religion.' So far his
orthodoxy is unquestioned ; but when he proceeds to
make exceptions he falls under the censure of writers who
glory in the qualifying word Ultramontane.

1

I

2X6

ROME IN CANADA.

Father Braiin, a Jesuit priest of German birth, who
lives at Montreal, and stands high in the estimation of
Archbishop Bourget, is one of the great lights oi the New
School. In his work on Christian marriage, published
with the express approbation of the Administrator of
the diocese of Quebec, and of the bishops of Quebec and
Three Rivers, he says : * It is customary to regard Protes-
tantism as a religion which has its rights. This is an
error. Protestantism is not a religion ; Protestantism has
not a single right. It possesses the force of seduction.
It is a rebellion in triumph ; it is an error which flatters
human nature. Error can have no rights ; rebellion can
have no rights. Neither error nor rrbellion can dispense
with the obligation to periorm a duty. Rebellion has a
strict duty to fulfil ; this duty is to repent, it is to come
back ; it is submission to the Church. Error ought to
give up its obstinacy and make way lor the truth.'

We have seen French Canada in past times, under the
pressure of a strong impulse, act as a political unit ; and
if the ascendancy of the New School should become com-
plete, we should see it again. The Roman Catholics of
Canada claim to-day to numbei 1,780,000; and if this
were so, which we doubt, they would be nearly one half
of the population. In the actual state of matters, it is
idle to say that the teaching of the New School has no
warning for prudent and thoughtful men.

The views I have quoted in favour of intolerance are
neither accidental nor isolated. They crop up every-
where. Scarcely a lecture is delivered in the Province
of Quebec by a Roman Catholic but they find a place in
it. On a recent occasion,* Father Lory defined con-
science as the practical judgment by which reason judges
that a thing can or ought to be done, because it is good

* Union Catholique, Montreal. Stance du s8 Mai, 1876. This association is, I
believe, entirely under the control of the Jesuits.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

217

and just, or that it ought not to be done because it is
bad. But he went on to say : ' Reason is not at liberty to
embrace error ; ' that is, what the Church of Rome regards
as error. He undertakes to establish that : ' when truth
is evident, either by means of a certain demonstration,
or ' the testimony of an infallible authority,' that is, the
Pope, the ' conscience is at liberty to embrace it ; when
doubt exists, conscience is free to embrace one side or the
other, saving always the rights of legitimate authority, to
which cases of doubt ought always to be submitted ; '
* error has no right to manifest itself.'

These, we are told, are the cases in which the consci-
ence enjoys a liberty more or less extended : the liberty
to believe what the Church of Rome holds to be truth.
But, M. Lory added, this is not what is understood, at
present, by liberty of conscience. ' What the Liberal
School understand by this state of things, in which the
State recognizes and accords an equal right of public
manifestations to all religions whatsoever, to error as
truth, and to citizens an equal right to practice and
manifest them ; ' a state of things which he rejects as
wholly unwarranted.

So far as the differences go, the truth of one Church is
the error of another ; and the State has no means of
deciding between them. It can only, in fairness and jus-
tice, secure to all the enjoyment of that common liberty
which the Ultramontanes so fiercely denounce.

The Archbishop of Quebec, as we have seen, placed
Le Reveil under interdict for the unpardonable crime of
reporting a speech of Castelar on religious liberty.f The
only words which he quotes from the speech as objec-
tionable are : Je ne suis ni Catholique, ni Protestant,
mais religieux (I am neither Catholic nor Protestant, but
religious). But this was not the real offence. Castelar

t Circulaire, 31 AoAt, 1876.

^1'^^

•:■!( ■

{ti8

ROME IN CANADA.

Stated that, in early times, the Spanish Church had been
the most democratic in Europe, thoufjli it was orthodox
even to the admission of the Immaculate Conception. Dur-
ing the whole of the eleventh century there were only
about four appeals to Rome ; the people ii,amed their
bishops and the king confirmed them ; liberty existed in
the national Councils of Spain, as was attested by the
annals of the Council of Toledo, where the ecclesiastica
discipline of the nation was regulated, without the aid of
Rome and against her opposition. He described how
tlie spirit of intolerance attacked, in turn, the Jews, the
Maories, the Protestants. Turning to himself, Castelar
remarked that he received his first education from minis-
ters of religion, but that on his entrance on practical life,
at twenty-two, he soon came to see that ' true liberty can-
not exist, unless it has the support of liberty of consci-
ence. As professor, he taught this doctrine, and when
the Jesuits attacked him for doing so, he was sustained by
his university, which held that he was not bound to say
what was agreeable, but what was true.' But he was not
always so fortunate. Once, when the Jesuits had the upper
hand, they succeeded in driving him trom the university.
So great is the crime of reprinting the speech in
which these things appear, that the Archbishop of Que-
bec issued an order forbidding the faithful to read the
journal in which it appeared, li Le Reveil iiad contained
an article in favour of intolerance and a denunciation of
religious liberty, it would have met a ready approval at
the archiepiscopal palace. If we escape from the practi-
cal danger of this doctrine, we owe it to the large propor-
tion of the population who hold it in abhorrence. When a
man tells you he would take your life or deprive you of
your liberty if he had the power, you may thank him for
his candour, but you will deem it prudent to be on your
guard against his machinations.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF INTOLERANCE.

aig

There were at the time when this speech was re-piib-
lished more appeals to Rome, from Canada, than were
sent there from Spain in the whole of the eleventh cen-
tury ; a fact which the Arclibishop probably foresaw
would create some unpleasant retlections in the minds of
a peoi)le who passed through a grave crisis to obtain the
right of selt-government.

Ultramontanisni, when it gets full swing, and is not
under the influence of some local restraint, is everywhere
the same. Mgr. Gaume, a great authority in the Church,
who follows m the footsteps of M. de Maistre, has pub-
lished a catechism of the Syllabus, which is much in
favour in Quebec, and which is advertised as having re-
ceived the approbation of the Pope.* He defines
modern Liberalism as a sect which pretends to conciliate
the modern spirit with the spirit of the Church. Having
asked what are the special points on which Liberalism
asks this conciliation, he replies : ' liberty ot conscience;
liberty ot worship ; liberty of the press ; the seculariza-
tion of politics.' To the next question comes the reply :
the Church can never accept such conciliation, because
' in sanctioning liberty of conscience and equality of wor-
ship, the Church would lose her raison d'rtn\ since it is
apparent to the whole world that there is only one true
religion. 't

, In sanctioning the liberty of the press, IMgr. Gaume, by
a perversion of reasoning, pretends that she would be
sanctioning the liberty of doing evil as well as good. The
right to teach error — that is, what the Church of Rome
does not teach — he places on the same level with the
right to murder and to rob.

♦ Petit Cat^chisme du Syllabus, par Mgr, Gaume.

+ In the year i86g, Cardinal Antonelli, in a letter addressed to tlie Bishop of Nicar-
agua, Central America, on the subject of an attempt made to establish in that State
'freedom of education and worship,' said : ' Both of these principles arc not only con-
trary to the laws of God and of the C^'urch, but are in contradiction to the concordat
established between the Holy See and t*'-.' Republic'

iVl

Nl

]

1

/

220

ROME IN CANADA.

The catechumens are taught that Catholic Liberals are
wolves in sheep's clothing, who compromise the gravest
interests of society ; and who (strange comparison) can
no more be admitted to absolution than can a pestilence.
Their favourite maxim, a free Church in a free State, is
described as bemg without meaning, or as signifying
* the independence of the State towards the Church,'
which the author of the catechism finds to be the essence
of despotism, and an impossibility not less than the at-
tempt to make a man live by separating his body and his
soul.

If Rome is alone in possession of the truth, how is
heresy to be dealt with ? ' Heresy,' says Father Giovanni
Perrone, Professor of Theology at Rome, ' being a crime
against the State, ought to be proceeded against by the
civil power and the Inquisition.' This is the key to
the meaning of Ultramontane writers when they ana-
thematize all who advocate the separation of the Church
from the State. The connection they desire is that of
master and servant : the Church to direct, the State to
put the directions into force. The spirit of the partnership
between Pope Alexander VI. and Ferdinand the Catholic
is invoked by one of the greatest living theologians of the
Church of Rome ; and civil governments are asked to
give to Rome the service which that monarch voluntarily
rendered in Spain, and which Charles V. extended to the
Netherlands, at the expense, as it proved, of a revolution,
in which a gallant people released itself from the Spanish
yoke and proved its right to breathe the free air of nation-
al independence. If the blood-stained crimes of the gov-
ernments which aided Rome to establish the Inquisition
are not likely to be repeated in our day, it is not because
the emissaries of Rome would not do their best to bring
about the revival.

XI.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

w

The New School claims for the Church of Rome abso-
lute power over all questions of marriage ; not only when
the contracting parties are both Roman Catholics ; not
only in mixed marriages — when one is a Roman Catholic
and the other a Protestant — but also over the marriages
of heretics. ' It is,' says Bishop Bourget, * for the Church
and not the State to make laws concerning marriage ; '
and he contends ' that the civil power cannot, in any
way, render null a marriage contracted by the Church :
that it can neither control nor annul the dispensations
which the Church judges proper to give for the purpose
of removing the impediments which she alone can put in
the way of marriage.' He liberally allows that the State
may legislate on the civil effect of marriage, provided she
respects the knot the Church has tied, for with this it is
not, in any case, permitted to interfere. Civil marriage
is stigmatized as concubinage ; * divorce, though allowed
by the civil law, is a crime to be punished with eternal
damnation.' All matrimonial causes, the bishop further
contends, ' ought to betaken before ecclesiastical judges :
to pretend the contrary is to incur censure.'* The Jesuit
priest Braun has written a book of a hundred and seventy-
nine pages to prove that the Church is everything and
the State nothing. Of this work a single sentence will
give the key note : ' The legislation of the Church on
marriage comprehends not only marriages between

* Approbation des Ittstructtons Dogntatiques sur Ic Mariage Chretien. Montreal, le
I Mars, 1873.

■m

II

222

ROME IN CANADA.

Catholics, but also mixed marriages and the marriages of
heretics with one another.' He appeals to the Council of
Trent to show that any one who states that marriage
causes do not belong of right to e.cclesiastical judges, by
that fact comes under anathema. It is quite true that the
Council of Trent did go to this extent ; but that all the
decrees of the Council of Trent have the force of law in
Canada is an assumption whichhascertainly not yet been
proved. It would be about as pertinent to quote an
Ukase of the Emperor of Russia to prove the obligations
of Canadians on the question of marriage or any other
question, as to speak of the Council of Trent being bind-
ing on a country in which its disciplinary decrees were
never received. And yet three bishops gave their sanction to
all the assumptions contained in Father Braiin's work :
the Archbishop of Quebec, the late Bishop oi Montreal,
and the Bishop of Three Rivers. The Archbishop recom-
mended it ' as containing an excellent rcstime of the
doctrine of the Church on this great sacrament.' The
Bishop of Three Rivers concludes that the science and
the logic of the author will so well serve the cause of
truth that the latter will ' victoriously resume those
rights which prejudice and error have long since sup-
pressed or overshadowed.' Bishop Bourget, who is
never to be outdone by any rival, when on any question
everything is claimed for the Church and everything
denied to the State, particularly recommends the study
of this book to the people of his diocese ; considering, as
he does, that an imperious duty is laid upon him to raise
a voice of warning against * the fatal errors concerning
marriage which cause such terrible evils wherever they
are put in circulation.' The logic of the author, which
the Bishop of Three Rivers estimates so hif^hly, is a little
misty. Take an example: * The contract is the marriage,
the sacrament is the marriage, therefore the contract is

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

22J

the sacrament.' If you allow a logician a major and a
minor which directly contradict one another, what possible
perversity is there which he could not prove ?

Here we have a definition ol the true sacrament of
marriage: ' Whenever there is a legitimate matrimonial
contract between a man and a woman, there is a true
marriage sacrament among Christians.' ' The sacerdotal
benediction is not essential to the sacrament ; . . . the
essence of the sacrament consists in the act of the cele-
bration of the marriage by the consent of the parties ;
. . . Christian marriages are valid though they have
not been blessed by a priest.' * The priest is not minister
of this sacrament or of the contract, because he does not
contract.'

From these * principles,' it results that a marriage
entered into with the accompaniment of any religious
ceremony, and without any conformity on the part ol the
contracting parties to the law of the land, is valid, pro-
vided it does not contravene some law of the Church. In
fact, we are told that clandestine marriages contracted
with the voluntary consent of the parties are valid un-
less the Church renders them nuJi, and that to deny their
validity is to incur anathema. The Church, nevertheless,
prohibits such marriages. The Jesuit does but here give a
fair summary of the decrees of the Council of Trent on
marriage.

Father Braiin commands us all, including heretics, to
see that we are married according to the formalities pre-
scribed by the Council of Trent ; and when he adds
that marriages otherwise performed are mere concu-
binages, that the contract is null, the oaths null, and that
the parties are bound in conscience to separate, it becomes
very important to learn what these ceremonies are. Let
all persons about +0 inarry therefore understand that the
marriage can be valid only when it is performed ' In pre-

i

'!3
ill

i

■:', t:i

': I

I

224

ROME IN CANADA.

sence of the cure, or some other priest with the permission
of the cure or the ordinary,' and that if there be not three,
or at the very least two, witnesses to the ceremony, the
knot will not hold, and must be considered as not having
been tied. But let them take comfort in the reflection
that all this applies only to places where the decrees of the
Council of Trent have been published ; where they have
not been published, even a purely civil marriage, our
theologian admits, is binding. But how is it possible to
know whether these decrees have been published in any
particular parish ? The Council seems to provide for a
publication in each parish separately, and that its decrees
shall be binding thirty days after the first publication has
been made in any particular parish. This may be Roman
ecclesiastical law , but the Privy Council does not admit
that it is in force in Canada.

The marriage of two Roman Catholics before a Protest-
ant minister is not a very rare occurrence in Ontario ;
many such marriages have taken place. Father Braiin
notifies all persons who have been so married that,
though they have had no suspicion of the fact, they are
living in a state of concubinage. And here, strange as it
may seem, this Jesuit author relies upon ' the ancient
legislation of France, which still forms the law of the
French Canadians,' and which he assures us does not re-
cognize this kind of marriage. But why appeal to the
civil law, if the Church alone has the right to legislate
upon matrimonial questioiu- and to adjudicate upon
matrimonial causes ?

The French ecclesiastical law, which was in force prior
to the conquest, we have the highest authority for believ-
ing is the ecclesiastical law of Quebec to-day. Only a
few years ago Bishop Bourget, by his endorsation of a
work of Mgr. Destautels,* did in effect make this aver-

* Mauuel des Cur^s. Montreal, 1864.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

335

ment. But twelve years seems a long period when we
consider the rapid march which Ultramontanism has
been making ; and the late Bishop of Montreal is now
very far from admitting that the ecclesiastical law in
force in France in 1759 is still in force in Canada. The
counsel for the Church in the Guibord trial took the
ground that all these laws were swept away by the ces-
sion of Canada to England. It is true that this conten-
tion was not finally accepted as law, but it gained some
adherents even on the bench. Judge Drummond said :
' Under the ancient French law the civil tribunals could
interfere in similar matters. The nation and the sovereign
were Catholics ; there was a close connection between
the State and the Church ; and the sovereign, as a pledge
of the protection accorded to the Church, thought him-
self entitled to interfere, in certain cases, to prevent or
repress the abuses and encroachments which the eccle-
siastics sometimes committed. The cession of Canada to
England changed this state of things. The guarantee of
the free exercise of the Catholic religion accorded to the
Canadians, and the fact that the sovereign was a Pro-
testant, rendered as impracticable as dangerous the in-
tervention of the State in the affairs of the Church.'

Judge Badgley took the opposite ground. ' It would
be easy,' he said, 'to fix the jurisdiction of" our courts in
matters of ecclesiastical abuse, especially as the Court of
Queen's Bench has more than once declared that it in-
herited the whole superior authority of the highest juris-
diction, in Canada, previous to the conquest.' That the
whole civil rights of a people could be taken away by the
act of cession is a notion which Judge Mondelet emphatic-
ally repudiates. Such a change, he argues, the French
sovereign had no power to make, and the English Crown
would not desire to make it if it had the authority to do
so.

226

ROME IN CANADA.

Of the French civil law relating to ecclesiastical af-
fairs, to which Father Braiin here appeals, his whole
party would be only too happy to be rid at once and for
ever. Under that law, unless specially relaxed for reasons of
State, the marriage of minors, though performed under
the sanction of an ecclesiastical dispensation, was null.*
The Superior Council of Quebec annulled the marriage of
Sit. ■ de Rouville, a minor, to Louise Andre, who was of
marriageable age, on an appel comme d'abus, brought by
the Procureur-General, though it had been performed
under cover of a dispensation by the Vicar-General of the
diocese It also enjoined all Vicars-General to observe
tht; ji'u :. .. ces and canonic constitutions concerning the
public* V ^f th'j banns, which could be dispensed with
only on tne ccnser't of parents or guardians; all cures
and i^rie'jts, se<-' '.^;■'tnd regular, were required to note, in
tiie rtcorf^ of Uc« elebration of the marriage, whether
the contracting^ pa: !?l- iiad parents alive or were under
guardians or subject to the control of, some one else ; to
state whether the necessary legal consent had been given
by parents or guardians, or whether judicial authority
had been obtained where unreasonable opposition had
been made. The priest was also obliged to call in four
witnesses to the marriage, ' according to the ordinances
edicts, declarations, and regulations ;' not accordin
the Council of Trent or the canon law of Rome. The
Council also exacted conformity with the declaration of
the king, April 9, 1736, that the marriage should be in-
scribed in the register of the church where the ceremony
was performed, and if for good cause the marriage were
celebrated in some other church or chapel than that of
the parish in which the contracting parties resided, the
register was afterwards to be taken to the proper church
and there inscribed. The cures and priests were forbid-

* Arret du Conseil Superieur la Juin, 1741.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

327

den to enter the record oi the marriage on loose sheets,
which could be easily removed, and the contracting
parties deprived of the benefit oi all the advantages of
the contract of marriage. So great were the precautions
taken to have the civil laws enforced, and all attempts to
override them by ecclesiastical encroachments frustrated.
The ordinance of the year 1742, and the declaration
of the king four years before, bring us near to the period of
the cession of Canada, and they make us acquainted with
the lineaments of that civil law on the subject of marriage
to which Father Braiin apoeals, apparently without so
much as suspecting how complete a reply it furnishes to
his own contentions.

The civil ordinances forbade the priests to celebrate
the marriage of minors on any less evidence of the con-
sent of parents or guardians than their written authority.f
It sometimes happened that when a projected marriage
to which one of the parties was a minor became matter
of notoriety, all ecclesiastics were judicially warned not
to lend the aid of their ministry to its performance.;}: But
while the Government took the greatest precautions to
prevent ecclesiastics celebrating marriages which the
civil laws discountenanced, it had from an early period
held out extraordinary inducements to young persons in
Canada to enter into wedlock. As early as 1660 the
French king offered premiums for large4families.§ From
that time every father of ten living legitimate children
was to receive a pension of three hundred livres, and the
merit of having reared twelve children was to be re-
warded with a pension of four hundred livres a year.
But there was a condition attached to these premiums
which showed that, in the opinion of the king, an increase

t This fact is recited in Ordonnance de 6 Fer, 1727.
t Ord. 6 Fev. 1727.
i Arri-t du Conseil du Roy, i Avril.
15

228

ROME IN CANADA.

in the number of priests, monks, and nuns was not a pro-
per object of national encouragement : if any of the children
belonged to any of these three classes, the parents were
not to be entitled to the royal bounty.

But if the Government refused to allowthe ecclesiastics
to authorize the marriage of minors by a dispensation, it
claimed for itself the right to authorize and encourage
such marriages when public policy seemed to make
early marriages desirable. Not only was the marriage of
young men of twentj- years of age and under at the date
just mentioned, and of girls of sixteen and under, author-
ized, but these marriages were encouraged by a bounty
which passed under the name of 'the present of the king.'
The present of twenty livres to each young man and young
woman was payable on the day of marriage ; and as
French parents exercised the most absolute despotism over
their children in the article of marriage, the most impor-
tant event in their lives, Canadian parents were ex-
pected to copy their bad example, and every father who
neglected to get his sons married at twenty years of age and
his daughters at sixteen ought, Colbert thought, to be
subject to a pecuniary fine. But I have seen no proof that
such fines were ever imposed.

What is certain is that, in the days of the French
dominion, t;he civil government exercised absolute con-
trol over questions of marriage, with which bishops and
Jesuits now join in denying it any right whatever to
interfere.

The Church of Rome, pretending to possess the sole
right of legislating on marriage questions, has not, Father
Braiin contends, any need to receive the authority of the
State to celebrate a marriage. But if the laws of the land
were set aside in the celebration of marriages, we know
what would happen : invalidity of the marriages, and ille-
gitimacy of the offspring. But the object of proclaiming

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

229

these extreme doctrines is that the State may so far give
way to the Church as to abandon its own rights and con-
cede all her claims, even the most extravagant.

To tell two persons whose destinies have been bound
together by the ties of a civil marriage that they are
bound to separate, can hardly be passed over as a piece
of innocent declamation. It might not be without its
effect upon some persons in this position, and the effect
must certainly be of a mischievous tendency. The same
remark will apply to the declaration that : • A law which
authorizes civil marriage has no force to bind the con-
science ; it ought to be regarded with contempt, and ac-
cursed as the crime of a government.'* This doctrine
strikes at the root of civil society, and its assertion can-
not be read without a deep sense of abhorrence and detes-
tation. The authority of five saints is invoked to prove
that when there is a conflict between the civil and the ec-
clesiastical law no account is to be taken of the civil law ;
advice which, if acted upon, would certainly lead those
who put their faith in it into trouble. Civil marriage
incurs excommunication, and separation is made the con-
dition of absolution. From this it follows logically, and
Father Braiin does not shrink from the conclusion, ' that
the parliaments which authorize civil marriage, labour to
bring about the damnation of souls.' These are modest
assumptions for a foreign Jesuit priest to set up in
Canada.

Father Braiin claims for the Church a supreme, inde-
pendent, and exclusive power, which she holds by divine
right, over marriage ; from which many important conse-

♦ Father Braiin might have cited the authority of the present Pope for this mon-
strous doctrine. ' Hardly any greater outrage on society,' says Mr. Gladstone
(Speeches of Pope Pius IX.), 'in our judgment has ever been committed than by Pope
Pius IX. in certain declarations respecting persons who are married civilly without
the sacrament. For in condemning them as guilty of concubinage, he releases hem
from the reciprocal obligations of man and wife.'

I

230

ROME IN CANADA.

quences iollow; the first and most important of which
is thfit the State can have no right whatever over ques-
tions of marriage or matrimonial causes. Soon after the
conquest, the British Government promised its protection
to any Roman Catholic priest, in Canada, who might be
disposed to enter into matrimony. Father Braiin tells us
that, even if a priest were to turn Protestant and then
marry, his marriage would be null ; ' a sacrilegious concu-
binage, even though all the governments upon earth
should proclaim it legitimate.' If ' all parliaments, all
governments, pronounced valid a marriage contracted with
dirimant* impediment and without dispensation, their
sentence would have no effect.'

Let no one imagine that the pretensions of the Ultra-
montanes concern only the members of the Roman Catho-
lic Church. Let any one disposed to take that view of
the matter go to Father Braiin for information on the
subject, and he will be told that 'the universal laws of
the Church are binding on heretics, and the dirinians
impediments annul the marriages of heretics.' The general
principle of the ecclesiastical law, the same authority in-
forms us, is that : * The Church has jurisdiction over all
who have received baptism ; consequently over the here-
tics themselves, who are bound by the universal laws of
the Church.' Let all Protestants therefore understand
that, as they can read no book which the bishop or the
Pope does not authorize them to read, so they can only
be married in the way which the Church of Rome
directs, under pain of nullity, illegitimacy if there be
children, eternal perdition. Father Braiin may probably
live to learn that his doctrines are not likely to have prac-
tical application even in the Province ot Quebec.

* Dirimant. T^rme de Droit Canonique. On appelle empichement dirimans, un
defaut, qui emporte la nullity d'un mariage. Impedimcntum dirimens, II ya qua-
torze empechemens dirimans. — Trevous.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

ajr

But if every person who has been baptised is thereby
brought under the control of the Church of Rome, how
does it happen that the baptism of Protestants was,
throughout Europe and the United States, so far regard-
ed as invahd, that when any of them sought admission
into the Church of Rome re-baptism was made an univer-
sal rule ?t

But much depends upon whether decrees of the
Council of Trent have been published in a particular coun-
try, province, or parish. Popes have beforenow dispensed
with the impediment ol clandestinity, for the benefit
of heretics, where these decrees had not been pub-
lished. Benoit XIV., in 1741, performed this friendly act
for the benefit of the heretics of Belgium and persons who
had entered into mixed marriages ; and in 1764, the year
after the treaty of cession, Clement XIII. extended the
declaration of Benoit XIV. to Canada. At the same
time, this Pope declared that the other canonical impedi-
ments were fully binding on heretics, and took from the
Vicars Apostolic the power of granting dispensations in
this respect. As we are asked to admire the logic of
Father Braiin it is curious to note the conclusion he
draws from these facts. ' It therefore belongs,' he says,
as if it were a matter of logical necessity, • to the Church
to pass judgment on whatever regards the substance of
the sacrament of marriage ; she alone has the right to
judge matrimonial causes : she alone has the right to make
laws concerning the conjugal tie.'

The difficulty Father Braiin will find to be that States
are obdurate, and refuse to be convinced by this kind of
logic, though it assume a form never so perfect.

Here is a picture which Father Braiin paints as one
which may, in a certain eventuality, be realized in Canada:
• Let civil marriage be established in Canada, and you

i Sect Abbe McGuire. Recueil de Notes Diverscs.

43a

ROME IN CANADA.

will see pretended wives obliged to separate from their
pretended husbands on the bed of death ; or to have their
marriage celebrated in the moments of the last agony ; or
to die without receiving the sacraments and ' — here the
Jesuit becomes facetious — ' be legally damned.'

With a view of taking from the State all pn e of
right to legislate on the question of marriage, v .jrwise
than on its civil effects, Father Braiin rejects the doc-
trine of those theologians of his own Church who separ-
ate the sacrament from the contract. In identifying the
contract with the sacrament and the sacrament with the
contract, he leaves no room for the State to legislate on
the contract while leaving the sacrament to the domain
of the Church.

The chapter headed * Refutation of the Errors of
Pothieron Marriage' is a curious though not unique piece
of reasoning. 'Marriage," says Pothier, 'has two distinct
characters : the sacrament and the civil contrac*^ As a
sacrament it ought to be clothed with forma' 4 pre-
scribed by the Church ; as a contract it is sub^ j the
secular laws, the violation of which entails nullity. The
quality of sacrament comes after the contract, and pre-
sumes its pre-existence.' The refutation which the head-
ing of the chapter led us to expect consists of the state-
ment that the doctrine of Pothier has been condemned by
the Pope in the sixth article of the Syllabus. * There-
fore,' such is the logic of Father Braiin which we are in-
vited to admire, • to pretend that the civil government has
the right to judge of the matrimonial contract is to incur
anathema.'

After the same fashion, Pothier is refuted, at length,
through many pages, which are relieved from dulness by
the astounding assumption of the author. The opinions
of the jurisconsuls, we are told, for our instruction,
ought to be rejected. Still, Pothier is in the head of every

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

233

advocate and the hands of every law student in Quebec,
and we fear it must continue to be a text-book at Laval,
until that institution be supplanted by the projected
Jesuit university at Montreal. But let the law students
beware : the Sovereign Pontiff prohibits the reading of a
thesis taught in the University of Turin, and in which are
maxims identical with those laid down by Pothier. His
Holiness first catalogues the errors, and then pronounces
the sentence of condemnation, to which he adds a terrible
penalty. If the Pope is to rule in Canada, after he has
ceased to rule in the States once qualified as Pontifical,
we really do not see how the gaps which time and death
make in the ranks of the bar are to be closed.

The Italian professor Jean N. Nuytz, whose work the
Pope condemned in 1851, denied each and all of the
pretensions of the Church of Rome on the subject of
marriage. He held that the sacrament of marriage is
accessory to the coulract ; that it consists of the nuptial
benediction, and is separable from the contract ; that the
marriage tie is not, under all circumstances, indissoluble ;
that the Church has not the right to remove impediments,
but that this ight belongs to the State, which can alone
remove existing impediments ; that matrimonial causes
are properly cognizable by the civil tribunals ; that the
forms prescribed by the Council of Trent are not obligatory,
under pain of nullity, when the civil law has prescribed
another form.

So audacious a heretic could not be expected to be
allowed to teach doctrines so unpalatable at Rome, in the
Royal University at Turin, without being visited with
spiritual censures. Pius IX., having consulted ' the Con-
gregation of the Inquisition, supreme and universal,'
condemned these doctrines as false, audacious, scandal-
ous, erroneous, injurious to the Holy See. The faithful
were forbidden to read the condemned books — for it seems

234

ROME IN CANADA.

i •

there was more than one — under pain of interdict, in the
case of clerks, and of the excommunication major in the
case of laymen.

As Pothier was long since subjected to similar treat-
ment, It ibllows that no one can pursue the study ot the
law in Lower Canada, and no judge can administer the
law of marriage, without coming under the penalty of the
excommunication major.

The Church of Rome bases its pretensions on the
assumption that marriage is regulated by divine law, of
which the Church is the administrator. But these admin-
istrators of this divine law, who are themselves very
human, claim the right of dispensing with the divine
rules laid down tor their guidance whenever they think
proper to do so.

The ground on which the Church of Rome claims
authority, legislative and judicial, over marriage is, that
she merely interprets and puts into force the divine law.
Now, a divine law must be inflexible, unchangeable,
eternal. But the impediments to marriage which the
Church of Rome sets up have not always been, the same.
For instance, the impediment of affinity created by unlaw-
ful intercourse was reduced by the Council of Trent to
the second degree inclusively.*

By the canon law ad sedem, cousins-german were
of the second degree, and by the civil law of France they
were of the fourth degree ; while the issue of cousins-
german were respectively of the third and sixth degrees :
by the Council Latran they were restricted to the fourth
degree inclusively, according to the civil computation.
The wider the prohibited degrees, the more frequent the
necessity of dispensations. The Popes were certainly not

♦ II en resulte que si Pompee a connu charneltement Pauline, il ne peut plus epou'.er
ni la mere, ni la fille, ni la sceur, ni la tante, ni la cousine germaine, ni la niece de
Pauline ; et Pauline, de son c6t6, ne peut epouser aucun des parens de Pompte qui se
trouvent dans les degres qui viennent d'etre tnentionnes.— Abbe McGuire.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

235

guided by the inflexible rule of any divine law. Philip II.
of Spain was enabled, by a dispensation of the Pope, to
espouse his neice. Alter this dispensation had been
granted, the King and the theologians of Spain had the
strongest motive to uphold this power in the Pope ; but
the Faculty of Theology at Paris did not approve of it, its
objection being grounded on the fact that though the
Pope is head of the Church universal, and is clothed
with sovereign power, he must submit to the decrees of
the ancient Councils and the canons. A Papal dispensa-
tion enabled the Queen of Portugal to marry her uncle,
and the son of that marriage, the Prince of Brazil, was
by the same means allowed to marry his aunt.+

That the prohibited degrees in the Church of Rome
were not always uniform proved that the alleged divine
law, of which she claims to be the interpreter, was a law
alterable at the discretion of men ; and the whole super-
structure built upon the pretence of administering a divine
law falls to the ground, involving in the ruirt the extrava-
gant pretensions put forth by writers of the school to
which Father Braiin belon;jfs.:J

Pope Urban VIII. authorized the RecoUet mission-
aries in Canada to grant dispensations to the third and
fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity, to cover
polygamy among the Indians with the same sanction, and
to declare legitimate the children of polygamous mar-
riages. §

Paradoxical as it may sound, the motive alleged was
that after the savage polygamists had been converted and

i Rev. Charles Buck.

t Coquille. *

i Dispensandi in tertio, et quarto simplici, ettnixto consanguinitatis, vel afiinitatis
in matrirnoniis contractis, nee non dispensandi cum gentilibus et iniidelibus plures
exhores habentibus Declarandi prolem legitimam in prasfatis matri-
rnoniis ae praeterito contractis susceptam. The document, dated March 29, 1633, is
given at length in Sagard, Histoire dtt Canada, on the fifth (unnumbered) page, after
p. 1003 : Paris, 1636.

236

ROME IN CANADA.

baptized, each of them might content himself with that
one of his former wives whom he liked best.

The Church of Rome holds that, though there is one
cause for which a husband may put away his wife, or a
wife her husband, neither can marry again, since the
marriage tie is perpetual. The civil laws of almost all
countries permit a re-marriage in the circumstances sup-
posed, and on this point the Church of Rome and the civil
authority are in direct antagonism.

Though the Church of Rome pretends not to sanction
divorces, she has found an excellent substitute in the long
list of invalidating impediments. She has disguised the
divorces she has sanc^oned, though not calling them by
that name, under the denial that there had been any
marriage. If it can be proved that the marriage was per-
formed without the consent of one of the parties, that is
cause for separation. By this rule, ninety marriages out
of every hundred that take place in France could be
annulled; for.it is notorious that they are nearly all
made by the parents of the parties to be married,
and that those most directly interested have often
little or nothing to say in the matter. The annul-
ling of a marriage for want of consent in one of the
parties would be a divorce as certainly as if it were set
aside for any other cause. But the Church of Rome
rejects the word, and falls back on an antecedent impedi-
ment, which, when it consists of want of consent, might
be collusive and fraudulent. But if the Church of Rome
were allowed to declare marriages null on account of any
of the impediments which she chose to set up, marriages
would often be dissolved against the consent of the parties
thereto. The right to exercise this jurisdiction would
bring an enormous addition to the power and the wealth of
the Church. But, as we elsewhere notice, the opposition
of this Church to the establishment of a Court of Divorce,

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

»37

which for the sake of uniformity the British Government
asked that of Canada to estabHsh, has hitherto prevailed.
The abuses to which courts of divorce give rise in some
of the neighbouring States have not tended to recommend
these tribunals to the sober judgment of the Canadian
people. At the same time, Father Braiin greatly exag-
gerates the immoral influence of the Court of Divorce in
England, when he represents married persons as frequently
seeking the means of severing the nuptial tie in a pre-
meditated commission of one of the crimes for which
divorces are granted in that country. In the same way
he describes Queen Elizabeth as a bastard, who was
equally wanting in humanity and chastity ; he stigmatizes
Cranmer as a bigamist, and says that Knox counted his
sister-in-law among the numerous victims of his disorders.
But it was part of Father Braiin's business to show that
Protestantism covered itself with a multitude of crimes
when it departed from the maxims of Rome on the ques-
tion of marriage.

The question of a Canadian legislator being allowed
to facilitate a divorce, for the most legitimate of causes,
was referred to Rome, a few years ago, by M. Hector
Langevin. Anterior to the confederation of the Pro-
vinces, a Court of Divorce existed in New Brunswick.
Afterwards, a case came. up in which the judge of the
court was interested, and being unable to sit, he wrote to
the Minister of Justice, Sir J. A. Macdonald, asking him
to appoint a judge ad hoc to ..lear the cause. M. Langevin,
a colleague of Sir John, finding all the bishops
absent at the Vatican Council, wrote to one of them,
asking to be instructed in his duties as legislator. The
Canadian bishops, finding the question too weighty for
their decision, referred it to one of the Roman Congrega-
tions which has cognizance of such matters. The de-

238

ROME IN CANADA.

cision informed M. Langevin that, as a Catholic, he was
not at liberty to vote for the bill.*

This is one of the numerous cases in which Canadian
legislators feel themselves obliged to enquire at Rome
what is their duty to their constituents and their country.

The Church of Rome, by her general opposition to
divorce, has rendered a great service to society. But
she has done much to neutralize this benefit by repre-
senting celibacy as a holier state than that of matrimony,
and affecting to raise the priest and the monk, on account
of their celibacy, to a higher moral level than those
who live in wedlock. If monks and priests and nuns are
equal to saints of the first order, as Count de Gasparin
has well remarked, t it is because marriage is assumed to
be a bond of dishonour and the family an inferior order.

Besides, the general opposition of Rome to divorce is
enfeebled by numerous sinister exceptions ; by the annul-
ment of a large number of marriages contracted by per-
sons in high life, and on that account the more certain to
spread afar the contagion of an example which often
rested on no better foundation than the accordance of
the act with the Papal policy at the moment. When
Rome brands all divorce as immoral, she only pronounces
the decree of her own guilt. She may call the divorces
she pronounced with unbounded liberality in the middle
ages by another name, but they are divorces none the
less.

In another way Rome did her best to dissolve marri-
ages and bastardize the offspring. When she interdicted
the exercise of worship in a State and forbade the priests
to confer the sacraments, among which marriage was

* La congregation donna sa decision qui me fut transmise et qui declarait entre
autres choses que, comme catholique, nous ne pouvons pas voter pour une mesure de
ce genre. — H. L. Langevin's evidence in the Charlevoix election case, 1876.

\ L'Ennemidela Famille.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

239

ranked, all the marriages celebrated during the time the in-
terdict was in force were treated as null, the innocent wives
as concubines, and the helpless children as illegitimate.

Father Braiin lays down a rule which would give the
priest the power of saying, in a very large number of
cases, whether marriages ought to be permitted or not.
The Church of Rome, he observes, has always blamed
the marriage of children without the consent ot their
parents, unless where the cupidity of the parents in a
measure compels the children to take that course. The
opposition of parents may be either reasonable or capri-
cious, and we are told ' it is for the pastor of souls to
judge whether the opposition of the parents is legitimate
or not.' Ir. the Province of Quebec, where a very large
proportion of the marriages are contracted at a tender
age, this rule would make the priest the arbiter of the
destinies ot the youth of his parish.

This a new doctrine, and is part cf the general aggres-
sive movement which the New School is making. Writ-
ers who undertook to instruct young cures in the perform-
ances of their duties used to tell them that, where the
father and mother opposed unreasonable objections to
the marriage of children who were minors, an applica-
tion to the Court of Queen's Bench ought to be made,
and that, if reason for doing so were shown, the judge
would authorize the marriage. |

Every one knows that mixed marriages are no rare oc-
currence. They are, however, according to Father
Braiin, ' generally disapproved by natural and divine
law ; they are besides expressly prohibited by the canon
law.' And yet it is well known that such marriages are
frequently sanctioned and performed by Roman Catholic
priests, and even bishops. In a western county of On-
tario, where there is a mixed French and English popula-

{ Abbe Maguire, /?«H«i7 rfi: Notts Diverses,

240

ROME IN CANADA.

tion, one Protestant, the other Roman Catholic, a regular
rule was laid down and acted upon for the education of
the offspring of such marriages : the girls were to be
Roman Catholics, the boys Protestants. By the opera-
tion of the law of natural selection, it came to be demon-
strated, after the lapse of many years, that a large
majority of the children were male ; and then the Church
ot Rome repudiated the rule which had, by its express
consent, long been iacted upon.

The difficulties connected with the education of the
offspring of mixed marriages are generally smoothed by
special arrangement, though they are liable to be ag-
gravated by clerical interference.

Disparity of faith is an dirimant impediment between
a Christian and an unbaptized person ; but between a
Roman Catholic and a heretic, for whose conversion
there is always reason to hope, the impediment does not
amount to a prohibition, or render the parties incapable
of contracting a marriage, although no dispensation has
been obtained. But here, as at almost every other point,
the laws of the land clash with the prescriptions of the
Church of Rome. In 1868, Judge Monk, of the Superior
Court of Montreal, decided that the marriage of a
Christian with a pagan Indian contracted according to
the custom of the tribe ought to be regarded as valid in
Lower Canada.*

The claim of the Church of Rome alone to possess the
power ot creating impediments to marriage and to be the
sole judge in ecclesiastical causes is one which. Father
Braiin at their head, the New School seems inclined to
press to extremity ; but to suppose that it will be granted
is to suppose Canada sunk into an extremity of submission
to Ripme of which the world scarcely now presents an
example.

♦ Dtsirc Girouard, B. C. L. Ci'itsiiUiatioiis stir ks Lois Civiles du Manage,

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

341

It is gravely argued, even by some lawyers, that matri-
monial causes ought to be judged by the ecclesiastical
authority ; and we have seen that in one instance Judge
Polette referred a cause of this kind to Bishop Cook ot
Three Rivers, and founded his judgment on that of the
bishop. But the rule seems to be that the Superior
Court of Quebec decides such questions, as it decides
others that come before it, and entirely ignores the alleged
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Under the French dominion, the right of the Church of
Rome to dispense with publication of banns was strictly
prohibited by the ordinance of Blois ; so that in this parti-
cular, as well as in a hundred others, the Church of Rome
in Canada claims to-day a range of power which was denied
to her before the conquest. Certainly the ordinance of
Blois is too plain to be capable of misconception : * Our
subjects,' it says, ' cannot contract valid marriages with-
out precedent publication of banns ; ' and Pothier says :
' when a marriage is accused of clandestinit)', if the pub-
lication is not well proved, the want of publication of
banns has great weight in declaring it clandestine, and
consequently in depriving it of civil effects.' Neverthe-
less such marriages publicly solemnized would not be set
aside.f By a play on the words contained in the Quebec
Act, relating to the * free exercise of the religion of the
Church of Rome,' Ultramontane authors contend that
the civil law of France was swept away after the conquest
and the canon laws of Rome on the subject of marriage
took its place.]: On this pretension, as we have already
seen, the Courts have given conflicting judgments; but
the judgment given, in final appeal, by the Privy Council
is, that the law of France relative to ecclesiastical niat-

*!

r^a

t James Armstrong, Advocate. A Treatise on the Law Relating to Marriages in
Lower Canada.

t Girouard.

.34a

ROME IN CANADA.

ters which was in force in Canada at the time of the
conquest remains in force to-day, subject to such modi-
fications as have been made by statute.

It is certain that the civil law of France did impose
impediments to marriage, and these impediments no
ecclesiastic was permitted to assume to remove. Two
other kinds of impediments were admitted : one arising
from scripture, the other from the canon law. When
the impediment proceeded from the canon law, the neces-
sity of going to Rome for a dispensation was not admitted.*

Before France idopted the prevailing opinion of the
Roman Catholic Church, divorces a vinculo were per-
mitted ; afterwards divorces mensa et thoro were allowed.
The Canadian Senate, which has power to grant divorces
of either kind, must, in doing so, be assumed to act judi-
cially, and though its judgment takes the form of a legis-
lative enactment, it practically exercises the functions of
a Court of Divorce.

The fourth Provincial Council of Quebec, at which the
Provinces of Toronto and Saint Boniface were repre-
sented, in its XII decree made a resume of the reasons
which the Church of Rome opposes to the establishment
of a Court of Divorce. These reasons must be equally
intended to apply to the Senate exercising the functions
of a Court of Divorce. Pius IX., in an allocution of Sept.
27, 1852, describes the doctrine of divorce as treating with
contempt ' the dignity and the mystery of the sacrament
of marriage ; ' as ignoring and destroying the institution ;
as treating with contempt the power of the Church
over this sacrament ; as favouring errors already con-
demned as heretical ; as contradicting the doctrine of the
Roman Catholic Church, by treating marriage as a purely
civil contract, and assuming the right of civil tribunals to
judge of matrimonial causes.

* Coquille.

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

243

Father Braiin, going beyond this allocution of the
Pope and the Syllabus of 1864, plainly involves in his
anathema the Canadian Senate, when it undertakes to
pronounce a divorce in a matrimonial cause legally
broi ght before it and legally dealt with.

If we regard the doctrines of Father Braiin merely as
a prc»gramme which the New School is desirous of realiz-
ing, it will not be without instruction and warning for us.
The validity of certain marriages performed in Ontario
by Catholic priests, but in which the requirements of the
civil law had been disregarded, came before the tribunals
on the question of the right oi succession to property.
But though they were elaborately argued, no judgment
was pronounced ; and the Legislature was finally called
in to cut the knot of the difficulty by declaring the dis.
puted marriages legal. It is always undesirable, and gen-
erally dangerous, to resort to ex post facto legislation, and
it is doubly so when the effect is to decide questions which
have been before the courts and on which no judgment
has yet been pronounced. The Church of Rome had for
years clamoured in vain to have these marriages con-
firmed. Still, it can hardly be doubted that it was better
that they should be confirmed ; for the dissolution of
families by a judicial decision resting on some technical
informality in ^he marriages would have been a social
calamity. But Father Braiin wonld possibly not admit
that the civil authority may, in this respect, do what the
Church importunes it to do ; and if he were consistent
he would have to declare the Legislature of Ontario
anathema.

The claim of Bishop Bourget for the Church of an un-
limited right of dispensation is one which was not
admitted when Canada was a French colony.

16

244

ROME IN CANADA.

XII.

APPEALS TO ROME.

The nearer Canada draws to Rome, the more frequent
are appeals to the Roman jurisdiction. The fifth Pro-
vincial Council of Quebec accepted, in the most absolute
manner, the decrees of the Vatican Council. The Coun-
cil, in the words of Archbishop Taschereau, accepted in
the most absolute way everything that was defined by
the Vatican Council and especially on the infallibility of
the Roman Pontiff. This official act binds in a
special manner the Church, already bound before, of
which the Council was the local organ. To appeal to an
infallible judge the temptation is of course very great.

Between the infallible and the fallible utterances of the
Pope, Canadian Ultramontanes make no distinction ; they
do not even admit that a Pope who is infallible in his
teaching office, on the subject of faith and morals, can be
fallible in anything.

In accepting absolutely everything the Vatican Council
decreed, the fifth Provincial Council ofQuebec accepts and
echoes the declaration * that by the appointment of our
Lord, the Roman Church possesses a superiority of ordin-
ary power over all other Churches, and that this power of
jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episco-
pal, is immediate,' and to which all are bound *to submit,
not only in matters which belong to faith and morals, but
also to those that appertain to the government and dis-
cipline of the Church throughout the world.'

This leaves no room for the operation of any guarantees
for the protection of national or civil rights. The right to

APPEALS TO ROME.

245

prevent discipline, wholly under the control of Rome,
being exercised to the injury of the nation, which has at
different times, and in nearly all countries been enforced,
is, at one stroke, swept away.

In accepting, in a spirit of absolute submission, all the
definitions of the Vatican Council, the fifth Council of
Quebec accepts the declaration 'that it ispermitted to no
one to interpret the sacred Scriptures contrary to ' the
decree of the Council of Trent concerning interpretation,
' nor contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers.'
But what if such unanimous consent has no existence ? The
declaration is remarkable chiefly for its pronounced
intolerance.

Further, the Provincial Council necessarily accepts the
statement that the Church 'derives from God the right
and the duty of proscribing false science,' of which the
Church is the sole judge. Does the Church still hold that
the science of Gallileo was false ? If not, when did she
acknowledge her error? Are we to stop our geological
investigations, or hide the discoveries to which they
lead?

The Provincial Council also necessarily accepts and
echoes the declaration that the Pope ' is the supreme
judge of the faithful, and that in all causes, the decision
of which belongs to the Church, recourse may be had to
his tribunal, and that none may re-open the judgment of
the Apostolic See, than whose authority there is no
greater, nor can any lawfully review its judgment.' And
that no appeal from the judgments of the Popes to gen-
eral Councils is lawful.

This declaration of the Vatican Council is already bear-
ing abundant fruit. Appeals to Rome are heard of al-
most every day, and some of the judges evidently look
with concern upon the possibility of their judgments being
condemned at Rome. Judge Routhier recently stated,

II

34^

ROME IN CANADA.

on the Bench, with evident pride and satisfaction, that it
was not true, as had been reported, that one of his judg-
ments had been condemned at Rome ; that on the con-
trary, it had been greatly praised there ; only one of the
grounds qn which it was based had been condemned.
He had evidently made personal enquiries on the sub-
ject at the centre ot Papal authority.

M. Langevin submitted to receive instruction from
Rome as to what his duty was as a Canadian legislator
in a particular instance. M. Tremblay appealed to Rome
asking to have adjudicated upon a cause arising out of
an election in which he was a candidate, and which he
complains that the Archbishop did not decide with promp-
titude, or show any disposition to decide at all. Some-
times the priests are unable to tell the electors for which
candidate they ought to vote till the question has been
sent to Rome and an answer received. At the Montreal
West election, 1876, his eminence Cardinal de Angelis
was asked whether it was permissible for Roman Catho-
lic electors to vote for one of the candidates who was a
Freemason. When the question was put it was explained
that the other candidate was out of the question, and that
the interests of the Church seemed to require that the
prohibition of Roman Catholics to vote for a Freemason
should in this instance be removed. The response was
that, under the circumstances, it was permissible to vote
for a Freemason.* When a letter appeared in a Toronto
journal, March 17, 1876, under the signature of ' An Ultra-
montane,' the same Cardinal being appealed to, gave an

elaborate opinion on its merits from the Rov
The Courrier du Canada, rejoicing ii th'
Papal benediction as a good Ca'
theless not quite infallible. O* aay tii
the need ot ecclesiastical guidance wi thet'

* Lt Nouveau-Monde and L'UnUm tUs CanUmt de I'Est

tint,

of the

at, lever-

ditc leeling

dtment of poli-

I

APPEALS TO ROME.

247

tico-religious questions having reference to the alleged
undue influence of the clergy, wrote to the Archbishop
of Quebec for instructions. The Archbishop replied,
August 14, 1876, that the fundamental points in dispute
having been referred to Rome for decision he could not
properly interfere. But, as everything had been said on
both sides, he thought the decision of Rome should be
awaited in silence. Another Quebec journalist {Le Cana-
dien), who is painfully and belligerently orthodox, threat*
ened, September, 1876, to appeal to Rome if he should be
condemned in Canada for his treatment of the same
question.

Appeals to Rome come from all sides. A pastoral
of the late Bishop of Montreal was recently appealed
against. The violence of the Ultramontane bishops and
priests was appealed against. The question how far the
clergy are entitled to interfere in political elections was
sent for decision to Rome. Questions concerning the
Canadian Institute of Montreal were referred to Rome,
both by laymen and ecclesiastics. Questions of Univer-
sity education, raised by the Jesuits, were referred to Rome.
When there is a question of the canonic erection of
parishes, an order from Rome is awaited as the signal for
action ; and when a Canadian bishop issues a decree of
erection it goes to Rome for revisal, and when it comes
back, such revised decree obtains, by a special legislative
enactment, the force of law in the Province of Quebec.
Deputations to Rome are constantly taking place. Au-
thors, pamphleteers, journalists, who fall into the errors
signalized by the Syllabus, are denounced to the Holy
Office, or their writings are placed under the ban by a
more summary act of some agent of Rome in the Cana-
dian Episcopate.

When the Roman jurisdiction is invoked, it is not
often by way of appeal ; in the majority of cases the

248

ROME IN CANADA

matter in contestation has not been previously decided
in this country. Liberals and Conservatives alike rush
to Rome, for redress which they could better and
more speedily obtain at home. These appeals to
Rome, by investing a foreign authority with a power
and an influence it does not naturally possess, tend to
repress the national spirit and un-Canadianize the people.

A Montreal priest* stands ready, if the Pope should
disavow a literary performance of his (Lu Comedie In-
female), to curse it himself. In a letter to the Pope,
June 13, 1872, he says: ' You are the judgeof consciences,
the doctor of faith ; yours are the words of eternal life ;
judge you my book. If you condemn it, I also will curse
it. If, on the contrary, you do not disavow it, 1 will thank
the author of all good for having given me courage, and
armed me with truth and justice.' Surely there can be
no more effectual v/ay than this of saying that the Pope
is the Church and something more than the Church : a
God-man whose * words are eternal life !'

And the Pope not unfrequently interferes, or authorizes
the bishops to interfere, in the civil affairs of Canada.
By an apostolic decree of December 22, 1865, the Bishop
of Montreal was authorized to divide that city into as
many parishes as he might judge necessary ; and each
nev/ parish, including that of Notre-Dame, which was al-
ready in existence, was to be administered, not by the Sem-
inary, but by priests whom the Seminary might present to
the Bishop for approbation. f

A few months later. Bishop Bourget announced his in-
tention to act upon the pontifical direction.^ He ex-
plained the nature of a parish, as consisting of an eccle-
siastical arrondissement, iorm^d by the spiritual authority

♦ Alph. VjUeneuve.

i Bishop Bourget. Lettre Pastorale, 26 Avril, 1866.

} Lettre Pastorale, 33 Mai, 1866.

APPEALS TO ROME.

949

and added, that when this ecclesiastical division obtains
the recognition of the Government for civil purposes,
the canonic parish acquires certain civil prerogatives.
But, as there was no probability that the Government
would recognize the new parishes to be created in pur-
suance of an order from Rome, the Bishop added that
this consent was not always necessary, and in certain
cases it might even be considered inopportune.

The decree of Bishop Bourget erecting the new parishes
in. the city of Montreal was sent to Rome, to receive the
assent of the Pope, with or without amendments. In
po'nt ot fact, it was amended there, and in its final form
was published, in each of the new parishes, in 1874.

The Legislature of the Province of Quebec, to make
doubly sure that the work of Rome could not be open to
question, passed an Act,§ the English version of which
contained this marginal reference : * Decrees amended by
Our Holy Father the Pope are binding.' It has been al-
leged that this marginal reference is erroneous ; that there
is nothing in the text on which it could properly be based.
This is certainly not true of the French version. The
nature of the bill is pretty good guarantee that it was
drafted in French, and that the English version is a
translation. The French text fully justifies the marginal
note :

' Chaque paroisse, ainsi reconnue, Test sujette aux dis-
positions exprimees dansle decret d'urection qui la con-
^cerne telque amende par le saint-siege et publie en 1874
dans telle paroisse.'

The marginal note is absent from what we must assume
to be a new English edition ; and, strange to say, the text
is now different from that just given in French. It
reads : • Each parish so recognized is so, subject to the
provisions set forth in the decree of erection which re-

{ 38 Vic. cap 29.

Ui

350

ROME IN CANADA.

spects the same.' This is very nearly, if not absolutely,
nonsense. The chief alteration in substance is the omis-
sion of all reference to the decree having been amended
by the Pope. But the fact that the decree was amended
by the Pope remains, and the provisions of that decree
are recognized. So that the facts, as avowed in the
French version and in the English marginal note, still
subsist in all their force.

The Ultramontanes pretend that the civil government
is bound to recognize whatever parishes the bishops,
acting in conjunction with the Pope, may choose to erect.
Very important consequences would follow the erection of
new parishes, where the right to collect tithes depends
upon their existence. It might thus lie in the power of
the Pope to say whether the people, in a particular sec-
tion of the Province of Quebec, should be compelled to
pay tithes or not.*

If we may judge by the difficulty of obtaining anything
like reliable vital statistics in Ontario, it would piobably
be difficult to dispense with the practice of requiring the
parish priests of Quebec to keep registers of baptisms,
nuptial benedictions, and funerals, and to furnish a copy
to the Government. In France, the curial registers were
dispensed with in 1792, and civil registers were establish-
ed. The French clergy appear to have kept les registres
de Vetat civil fairly well, though some .signal exceptions
have been pointed out.f The reasons for taking the
registers from the French clergy and placing them in the
keeping of civil officers arose out of a social complication
to which the Revolution had given rise. The priests who
had taken an oath to observe the new constitution fell

* ' II ne peut y avoir dans le Baa-Canada de paroitae purement canonique, 4 moina
qu 'elle ne soit privde et des regiitres de I'itat civil et dea moyena de percevoir la
dime.' — Judge Baudry, Code det Curis.

i Revue des Deux Mondes, 13 Mara, 1874.

APPEALS TO ROME.

2Sfl

(

under the suspicion of the reactionists. The latter con-
sidered a priest who had taken the oath to be incapable
of administering a sacrament, and they took their child-
ren, clandestinely, to nonjuring priests. The result was
a number of clandestine baptisms, oi which no authentic
record could be kept.

If the priests, in the Province of Quebec, were to refuse
to give, for civil purposes, a copy of the parish register,
on the pretence that they are not civil officers of the
State, much embarrassment might be created. The Ul-
tramontanes did raise this objection when Notre-Dame
of Montreal was divided into a number ot parishes, and
it may be raised again. But the law makes the priests
civil officers, in requiring them to keep the registres de
I'etat civil ; and as such they are universally recognized
by the courts. At first, registers were refused by the
Government to parishes erected in defiance of the civil
law ; but an appecil to Rome gave a complete triumph to
the Church. The example of this success has probably
done much to increase the number of appeals to Rome.

252

ROME IN CANADA.

XIII.

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL
CONTROL.

The united Roman Catholic Episcopate of Quebec
instructed the clergy, in a joint pastoral, dated September
22, 1875, how to proceed in obtaining control of Parlia-
mentary elections, and thus practically make the State
subordinate to the Church, and coerce it into obeying
her behests.

The joint letter assumes that the Church is a society
perfect in itself, distinct and independent of civil society,
having legislators, judges, and power to enforce its laws.
But, the pastoral proceeds, * not only is the Church inde-
pendent of civil society, she is superior by her origin, her
extent, and her object.' * A civil society embraces only a
single people ; the Church has received for her domain
the entire world,' with the mission to teach all nations.
♦ The State is therefore in the Church, and not the Church
in the State.'

More of this : ' By the nature of things, civil society
finds itself indirectly but in truth, subordinate ; for not
only ought it to abstain from everything that places an
obstacle to the final and supreme end of man, but it ought
to aid the Church in her divine mission, and if necessary
protect and defend her. Besides, is it not evident that
even the temporal happiness of nations depends on
truth, justice, morality, and consequently all those truths
which are confided to t > Church ? '

This subordination, the bishops in their liberality
admit, leaves the State independent in its own sphere.

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 2^3

But what is its sphere? Where are the barriers which
it is forbidden to overleap ? It must not touch any ques-
tion ot morals.

Who are the legislators and judges in this independent
society, which has the whole earth for its heritage, many
parts of which it has cultivated so badly that it ought to
be ejected therefrom for neglecting the duties of the
husbandman which it undertook to perform over eighteen
hundred years ago ? The answer of the bishops is : ' The
power of legislation exists in a supreme degree in the
Sovereign Pontiff; ' and General Councils possess the same
power, provided they are convoked by the Pope, presided
over, and confirmed by him. It is nevertheless true that
the right of presiding over many General Councils w^as
denied to the Pope.*

From the Pope to the bishop is but a step. They have,
the bishops of Quebec say, been established by the Holy
Spirit to rule the Church of God ; and in their respective
dioceses they have the 'power to teach, to command, to
judge ; a power which is nevertheless subordinate to that
of the chief of the Church, in whom alone resides the
plenitude of apostolic power and doctrinal infallibility.
Priests and laymen owe bishops docility, respect, and
obedience.'

Fr()m the bishops to the priests is the next and last
step. Each priest, regularly appointed, ' has a rigorous
right to the respect, the love, and the obedience of his
flock; ' obedience without limit.

• At the Council of Nice, he had to take a fourth place ; at the first and second coun-
cils of Ephesus, Cyrillus and Dioscorus, the Patriarchs of Alexandria, presided, in pre-
sence of the Pope's legates; at the Second Synod of Constantinople, the rM!:hop of Menas
presided, against the wishes of the Pope, thou^'h the ' Greek Schism ' had not then
taken place ; at the Council of Agulee, a town of Italy, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Melon,
presided; the Archbishop of Carthage presided at the Council of Carthage, where it
was decreed (says Coquille) quil r'etait permis A TEveque de Rome, de recevoir les
excommuniez par les evi-ques d'Afrique,et que quiconque pourvoiroit audit Eveque
Remain feroit excommunie. — Discours de droits ecclesiastique tt dt I'E^lise Gallicanr

«54

ROME IN CANADA.

The hierarchy, the theocracy, is complete.

It is the priest that must come in contact with the
flock ; it is he who must carry out the instructions of his
ecclesiastical superiors, by reading and explaining circu-
lars and pastorals at the altar, arid by enforcing the
instructions they contain through the confessional.

The refusal of the sacrament to a disobedient elector
would, Ultramontane writers tell us, be announced in the
secrecy of the confessional.

The sum of the directions in the joint pastoral of the
bishops as to the part which the priests are to play in
politics is, that they are, in certain cases, of which they
are necessarily to be the judges, to direct the electors how
to vote under pain of spiritual censures.

The priests are to do more. ' They may and ought to
speak not only to the electors and candidates, but even to
the constituted authorities.' And all this is to be looked
on, not as converting the pulpit into a tribune, but as en-
lightening the consciences of the faithful. When the
priests speak to the constituted authorities, they are, of
course, to speak with the authority of an independent
society which is superior to civil society.

Such is the pastoral letter of the united Roman Catho-
lic Episcopate of Quebec, which the bishops themselves
issued with misgivings and trepidation, their better judg-
ment seeming to be oyerpo^vered by some mysterious in-
fluence.

Bishop Bourget, when he speaks alone, is always more
himself than when his voice is mingled with the voice of
the rest of the Episcopate. In promulgating the decrees of
the fifth Council of Quebec, among some sensible advice,
he gave the most arbitrary directions. He told the electors
that they would have to render a rigorous account
to God for all the evil which a bad representative of
whom they made choice, though they knew him to be un-

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 255

worthy and incapable, may do. The Bishop remarks that
an elector who sells his vote ought to be deprived of the
franchise ; a reasonable suggestion, and one which he de-
serves credit for having made before it became popular.
He also tells the electors that they ought to consider
themselves obliged to vote, since the right to do so is
given to them lor the good of the country ; though he
admits there may be legitimate causes for abstention.
When money has been corruptly received for a vote, it is
to be given to the poor, as an act oi penitence. The
choice of a candidate is to be determined without the
bias of a party spirit, prejudice, or interest. The candi-
date is to be independent of all parties, ' who are intent only
on their own interests and not those of the country.'

But there are other parts of the pastoral in which
Bishop Bourget betrayed the secret that he was thinking
little about the country and much about his Church.
The candidates to be elected are, after all, men who would
prove inflexible m what are called the rights and liber-
ties of the Chuich of Rome. No one who sustains what
the Church calls errors is to be elected ; no one who
challenges the right of the priests to interfere with the
menace of spiritual censures in elections, or to instruct
electors or candidates how they are to perform their
duties; no one who desires a separation of Church and
State ; no one * who sustains propositions condemned by
the Syllabus;' no one who rejects 'the intervention of
the Pope, the bishops, and the priests in the affairs of
governments, as it these governments were not subject to
the principles which God has revealed to the Church
for the good administration ' of affairs.

The list of those whom the electors are forbidden to
vote for includes: all who affirm that the Church has
nothing to do with political questions ; all who 'criticise
and censure the mandates and circulars of the bishops

wm

256

ROME IN CANADA.

and the instructions ol pastors relative to elections, and
who, in spite of their protestations in favour of religion,
eflfectually and openly favour journals, books, societies,
which the Church condemns; all who dare to say that the
priests ought to confine themselves to the Church and
the sacristy, and who form part of any organization which
aims to prevent them from teaching in their instructions
the principles ot sound politics, as the Church herself
teaches ;' or that a Canadian Bismarck may arise to mete
out to the clergy who interfere in elections the measure that
has been meted to them in Germa/iy and other countries.

It is not quite clear that any parliament could be elected
at all under the restrictions here imposed. The Legis-
lature of Canada, under the late legislative union, long
since pronounced in favour of a complete separation of
Church and State ; and the declaration, occurring in the
preamble to a bill, was, we believe, made unanimously.
The adoption of the Syllabus for a political programme
would be a very simple proceeding; but if the Govern-
ment must receive its impulse from Rome, the forms of a
constitutional government would cease to afford any guar-
antee for the preservation of civil liberty, and the empty
ceremonial miglit as well be dispensed with.

The assumption contained in the joint letter of the
bishcps, that the State is in the Church, is a repudiation
of an ordinance passed nearly hall a century ago. It is
entitled 'an ordinance forbidding the pretended Vicars-
General of the chapter ol Quebec, and all the cures, to
publish any mandate or manifesto which emanates from
the pretended Vicars-General, under pain of the forfeiture
of their temporalities.'*

The Church of Rome has a long memory, and she lets
pass no opportunity of pushing her pretensions. For
nearly a century and a half it was not deemed prudent for the

Ordumiance des Intendans du Canada, Janvier 6, 1728.

'

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 257

Church to take up ground directly in opposition to this
ordinance,' in which we read : ' The Church being in the
State, and not the State in the Church, it makes part ot
the State, without which it could not exist.'

But perhaps the bishops had more particularly in view
some offending theologians of their own Church in
Quebec, who, only three or four years before, asserted the
contrary of the proposition contained in the joint letter.
They said : * The Church was received into the State tor
the good of the people of whom it is composed. 'f

If the New School, to which the whole Episcopate of
Quebec seems to have given a more or less hearty adhe-
sion, can conquer the State on which it is now making war
as easily as it silenced the recalcitrant within the bosom
of the Church, the day of its temporary triumph — for it
could only be temporary — is not far off.

The doctrines of the New School are extending to the
other Provinces. New Brunswick, to v/hich Bishop
Bourget has sent a number of priests, has caught the
contagion. Bishop Rogers, of Chatham, has gone as far
as Bishop Bourget in claiming for the Church the right
to an absolute direction in political as well as in religious
matters. :J

An occurrence took place which obliged Bishop Rogers
to speak, and he could only do so in one way without
placing himself in direct opposition to the eight bishops

+ Quoted in Quelques considirations surles riponsei de quelques thiologitns dc Quebec
aux questions propositi par Mgr. de Montreal de Mgr. de Rimottski.

J In a letter published by him, in the Saint Lawrence i4<ii;fl««, February 24, 1876.
As I find this letter in a French paper {Le Courricr du Canada, March 15, 1876), and
as a retranslation might fail to restore the exact words of the original, I shall, to pre
vent cavil, give the words as I find them : — ' Chacun est tenu de se conformer a la loi
de Dieu, en politique commedans les autres matieres, suivunt que cette loi dicte a sa
conscience qui est bien ou mal dans leg differents est, dans le^quels it est appele k
agir. Pour le catholique, c'est I'Eglise— par la voix de sea pasteurs legitimes et sur-
tout (le son premier pasteur.le Pape— qui est I'interprete autorise de la loi de Dieu
pour sa consciencp, non seulement en matiure de foi, mais encore dans la morale,
qui comprend tout acte humain^comnie noi^s I'avons vu plus haut.'

358

ROME IN CANADA.

of Quebec. A correspondent of a Chatham journal,
writing under the signature of 'Juan,' and calling himself
a Catholic, criticised the conduct of the Bishop of Mont-
real in compelling the cure of Boucherville to read the
joint letter of the bishops from the altar, and contrasted
his conduct with that of the Bishop of Chatham, a com-
pliment which the latter found it impossible to accept.
' Juan ' had committed the offence of claiming for each
elector the right to think and act for himself in political
matters ; for his own part, he was not prepared to obey
the Bishop of Montreal or any one else in this particular.
Bishop Rogers, in reply, tells him that he, like everyone
else, is bound to conform to the law of God in political as
well as other matters ; and what that law is he is to learn
from the Church, speaking through its legitimate pastors,
and above all the Pope, the authorized interpreter of the
law of God, not only in matters of faith but also in those
of morals, in which every human act is comprised. If the
Church is to direct and control every act of a man's life,
there is an end of individual liberty.

The Bishop of Rimouski appeared on the political stage,
with a timely letter to the clergy and faithful of his
diocese, when the elections to the Quebec Legislature
were about to take place, in the summer of 1875. He
cbnstructed a Syllabus of errors, which every candidate
was to undertake not to fall into himself, nor to follow a
party which defended them, orally or in writing. This
Syllabus contained six articles which, translated from a
negative to a positive form, sustained the assertion that
it is not dangerous to introduce religious principles — that
is, the interference of the clergy — in political contests ; that
the Legislature has no right to interdict the pastors of
the Church from interfering, with spiritual censures, by
way of direction to voters at legislative elections ; that
it is not allowable to practise moral independence in poli-

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL, 255

tical questions ; that the civil authority has no right to limit
the ecclesiastical power; that the functions of the clergy
are properly not confined to the sacristy ; that it is not
desirable to have mixed schools in which no religion is
taught, and to take from theclergy the control of education.

The object of the partisans of the condemned doctrines,
Bishop Langevin assumes, is to diminish the influence of
the clergy, to subject the Church to the control of the
State, and to favour the license — he will not allow that it is
a liberty — of free discussion. He admits that among the
partisans of the so-called liberal doctrines there are to be
found men honourable, peaceable, and exemplary ; but he
is kind enough to regard them with the pity due to the
dupes of worse offenders. The faithful are warned not
to vote for anyone who sustams principles which the
Church has cohdemned, and the command is backed by
the assertion of divine power : ' I am judge and doctor,
divinely appointed.'

To such a direction so given, the only response is
obedience. The meaning of Bishop Langevm's assump-
tions, like that of his colleagues in the Episcopacy, is that
the whole political power of the country belongs of right
to the Chur .1, a doctrine against which a whole people
will one day rise up to protest.

But is the bishop, even according to the Roman
theory, divinely appointed ? The Pope, it is admitted by
the Ultramontanes, is the sole judge, and he says that,
though bishops are successors of the apostles, they hold
their dioceses by an ecclesiastical, not a divine title.*
The claim of divine right, which the French representa-
tives put forward at the Council of Trent, was rejected in
favour of the Pope, whose influence would have been
lessened in France if French bishops held their dioceses
by a divine title.

* Gladstone. Speech of Pope Piui IX., p. 39.
17

•60

ROME IN CANADA.

Bishop Langevin fortifies his position by an extract from
the fourth Provincial Council of Quebec, which contains
the strange argument, that to separate religion and poli-
tics would be to banish God from civil society, and free
the conduct ol politicians from His holy law. This is to put
the priest in the place of God, and it is easy to conceive
what the effect of such teaching must be on the mind of
the simple, docile, and well-intended habitant.

Bishop Langevin is a two-sided man. What he now
commands, he not long since interdicted. The Bishop
Langevin of 1875 and the Bishop Langevin of 1867 are
wide as the poles apart. At the latter epoch he con-
demned the abuse of the pulpit in political matters,
and absolutely interdicted the priests of his diocese : to
apply general principles to a candidate, a party, or a
class ot electors ; to wound the feelings of anyone by per-
sonal remarks ; to name or designate the candidates in
the pulpit, or to pronounce on their respective merits ; to
counsel or order the faithful to vote for one candidate In
preference to another.*

Six years after the time when Bishop Langevin issued
this interdiction to the clergy of Rimouski, no layman
could repeat his affirmations except at the expense of
being denounced as impious, an enemy of religion and the
clergy.

The late Archbishop of Quebec, M. Baillargeon, at the
same time (1867) is leported to have replied to a person
who went to consult him on this subject : • You ought to
vote in accordance with your own conscience, and not that
of another.'i Between Archbishop Baillargeon and his
successor, M. Taschereau, there seems^to be a gulf which
a century would be consumed in digging. And yet, in
the face of these facts, we should not have to travel far

* Quoted by Hon. L. A. DcMaulles in Legrand Guerre Eeclisiaitique.
t Deisaullei.

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. a6i

to find a number of persons ready to maintain that the
Roman Catholic Church of Quebec is to-day what it has
ever been.

Even Bishop Bourget has made almost as great
an advance. At the election of 1867 he instructed the
clergy to ' remain neutral in questions which in no way
touched religious principles;' for he added, 'there is a
great difference between the direction: "vote or do not
vote for such a candidate," and this other: "vote for him
who in your soul and conscience appears to you qualified
to sustain the interests of religion and of the country.''
This was, in effect, a notice to the clergy not to name or
express a preference for any candidate, but to leave the
choice to the conscience and intelligence of the elector.
So long as the bishop adhered to this position, his con-
duct was not open to unfavourable criticism. He is now
completely at the opposite side of the circle.

These pastorals produced the effect that was expected
from them ; they caused the parish priests everywhere to
take sides, in elections, in favour of one party and against
another. An appeal was made to Rome to stay this in-
terference of the clergy in elections ; and it was reported
to be so far successful as to cause a monitum to be ad-
dressed to the Archbishop of Quebec on the subject.
That a monitum came from Rome, the Bishop of Three
Rivers denies ; but it is certain that the Archbishop was
called upon for explanations, and a pastoral which he
afterwards issued, May 25, 1876, shows that something
had occurred to cause him to make a temporary change
of tactics.

This pastoral was in direct opposition to the Joint
Letter of September, 1875. It forbade the priests to dis-
cuss political questions in the church or at the church
door; to volunteer any advice on the subject of elections,
under any circumstances, and even to answer questions

a6a

ROME IN CANADA.

on the subject which might be put while the priests are
on pastoral visits or in attendance on the sick. It went so
far as to deny the priests the natural liberty of defending
themselves from attack in the press ; a degree of severity
which is equally unjust and unreasonable.

The question was naturally asked, whether the.pastoral
of the Archbishop was inte.iui; J to supersede the Joint
Letter of September ; a question which the Archbishop
himself hastened to answer. His pastoral, he said,
neither revokes nor supersedes the joint letter. He
protested against the insinuation that he regretted having
signed the collective pastoral. * The principles there
propounded,' he said, ' are, in my eyes, too true and too
certain for me ever to regret having written and signed it.'
\nd he enters into a further aefence of this united act of
the Episcopate. It is impossible to agree with him that
there is no contradiction between the two documents; nor
does his lecalling the fact that the collective letter is ad-
dressed * to all Catholics of the Province of Quebec,'
while the pastoral of May 25 is intended ' to enlighten the
electors on certain duties which they have toperform at
elections, and to put them on their guard against certain
disorders,' produce that harmony between the two pas-
torals which the Archbishop invites us to admire.

It is enough to know that the collective letter is still in
force. It was necessary to do something, or rather to ap-
pear to do something, towards abating the scandal which
the electioneering of the cures had caused, and of vvhich
complaint had been made. But until the joint pastoral
is revoked, nothing effectual will be done ; and there is
no probability of its being revoked, for it was afterwards
to receive the express sanction of Pope Pius IX. It will
continue to be the duty of the priests to read the Joint
Letter and act upon it.

Already it wac known, though the Pope had not spoken

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 263

personally, that the Joint Letter had been approved in-
stead of being condemned at Rome ; Dr. De Angelis, pro-
fessor of canon law, to whom the pastoral of Bishop
Bourget on Liberalism had been referred, declared it ex-
tremely moderate as compared with the Joint Letter.*
This Roman doctor extols the Joint Letter as an exposi-
tion of the true principles of the Church; andhe approves
of its condemnation of political Liberalism.
. ' Who,' asks this doctor of canon law, dare ' rise up
against the collective letter ol the Bishops of Quebec ?
Who dare refute and reject the principles exposed in the
paragraphs above mentioned, principles which enter into
the polical arena ? '

Let us see what are the principles contained in these
paragraphs. Paragraph three is a denunciation of Catho-
lic Liberalism (libetalisme Catholique). 'The partisans
of this subtle error,' we are told, 'concentrate all their
forces with the view oi breaking the ties which unite the
people to the bishops and the bishops to the Vicar
of Christ.* Which means that they a»fi not willing
that orders sent from Rome, which violate the rights of
civil governments, should be carried into effect by the
bishops, the agents of the Pope. The Catholic Liberal,
it is admitted, is not wholly devoid ^ "Catholic principles,
and he observes certain pious practices ; he is not without
faith or attachment to ll.e Church ; but this goes for
nothing when he censures without scruple the highest
acts and documents of religious authority. ' Under the
pretext of removing ca ises of dissension and reconciling

* Si mime nous rapprochont ce mandement de la Lettre collective dei Eviqucs
de la Province de Quibec du 22 Septembre 1873 nous verroni qu'il ett fort et moin
preisant qu'it diffpre de crtte Lettre collective en ce que celle ci dam lei pnragra 'let
3,4,5 espoae d'une mani^re ferme et vigour oureuse let vraii principes admiae par
I'Egliae, la condemnation de I'erreur libirale, et la condemnation de cette erreur
mSme politiquement consider^, tandis que la Lettre Paitorale de Mgr. I'Eveque de
Montreal se matntient dans la condemnation du liberalism* considiri comme erreur
reliicieuse, et rien d* plus.

264

ROME IN CANADA.

the evangelists with the progress of society, he enters the
service ox'' Caesar aud of those who invent pretended rights
in favour of a false liberty ; as if darkness and light could
co-exist and as if truth does not cease to be truth
when violence is done to it by taking away its true
meaning and despoiling it of its inherent immutability.'
Five apostolic briefs declare that it is not permissible to
be a liberal Catholic.

Paragraph four contains only general statements, in
no way objectionable.

The fifth paragraph objects to the exclusion of th©
clergy from politics ; and to the assertion that in politics
the people ought to practice moral independence ; in other
words, that morality, applied to politics, may exist inde-
pendent ot dogma.* Those who complain of the undue
influence ol the clergy in politics are denounced as the
greatest enemies of the people. It is this paragraph that
contains the menace of excommunication against electors
who refuse to vote as the priest directs.

When the bishops tound the policy of the Joint Letter
arraigned at Rome by parties in Canada whose names
were withheld, they resolved to defend their action, and
for that purpose they sent a delegation to Rome, consist-
ing of Mgr. Lafleche of Three Rivers, and Rev. M.
Lamarche. The delegates carried with them a petition
signed by a number ol priests, in which an attack is made
on certain protessors oi the University of Laval lor having
objected to priests exercising undue influence m elections.
No one is named, but M. Langelier, professor of law, is
specially aimed at, he having been retained by M.Trem-
blay as counsel in the Charlevoix election contest, the
principal feature of which was that it was to test, for the
first time, the right of the clergy to interfere in elections
with all the authority of their sacred office. The petition

* See Mgr. Raymond, De I'intervention du prete dam I'ordre intellectuel et locial.

1

I

!■
1

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 265

was drafted by the Rev. Alexis Pelletier, alias Liiigi. The
petition makes it plain that the difficulty had arisen oui
of the Joint Letter. The petitioners claim that that letter
and what has been done under it are justified by the
decrees of the Provincial Councils. It describes 'fanatic
Protestants and Liberals ' as the enemies of the petition-
ers. There seems to have been a suspicion that in the
complaint made at Rome the University of Laval, or
some of its professors, had had some hand ; for the peti-
tion declares that that seat of learning contains men
whom the clergy have always combatted.

Armed with this petition, the Bishop of Three Rivers
set out for Rome. On his return, he published Novem-
ber I, 1876, in the form of a pastoral letter, a report of
what he had done. The priests, he says, alarmed at the
clam^ours raised against them for the exertion of undue
influence in the elections for the Province of Quebec in
1875, and the judicial proceedings with which they were
threatened, saw that it was necessary to enlighten the
faithful on questions of so much gravity. They conceived
that the liberty of evangelical preaching was in danger.
This led to the issuing of the famous Joint Letter by the
bishops. Its appearance made a profound sensation, and
caused menaces of proceedings against the priests to be
uttered. Secret opposition to the Joint Letter was made.
Doubts as to the accuracy of the doctrine contained in
the episcopal nr\nifesto had struggled into being. The
reports made to Rome, by persons uni<novvn to the
bishops, Mgr. Lafleche characterizes as ' gieatly exagger-
ated and entirely falsf, against tlie clergy of the whule Pro-
vince.' But when he comes to particulars, we find that
the clergy were merely represented as interfering ' in a
manner altogether mconvenient in political elections, and
as acting with a degree of imprudence that would com-
promise the future of religion in the country.'

266

ROME IN CANADA.

When, in response, Cardinal A. Franchi, Prefet of the
Congregation of the Propaganda, wrote to the Archbishop
tor precise information on the subject, the bishops felt
the necessity cf defending themselves ; and the delegation
was sent to Rome to reply, on behalf of the clergy, to
these charges. Those by whom they had been preferred
had sent to the eternal city no advocate to sustain them ;
and Mgr. Lafleche found that he was not confronted by
any one by whom his statements could be questioned.
This greatly facilitated the work of justifying the clergy
which he had undertaken to perform. He drew up a
memorial, founded on official documents, disciplinary
rules, pastoral letters, mandements, and decrees of Pro-
vincial Councils, the instructions which the bishops had
for more than twenty years given to the clergy, as well
on their duties as citizens and in the political arena as on
their religious obligations, and on the rules of conduct
traced for the clergy in respect to these duties.

The bishop obtained a victory. The Prefet of the Pro-
paganda, after reading this memorial, told its author that
the teachings which had been arraigned ' were pertectly
conformable to those of the Holy See, of which they
were the faithful and often the textual echo ; that the
rules of conduct prescribed for the clergy as to the way in
which they should instruct the faithful in the fulfilment
of their political duties were also v^ry wise, and that both
had received the approbation of the Holy See in the de-
crees of the Provincial Councils,' which can only take
effect after they have been sanctioned at Rome. In going
back a period of twenty years, it would be easy for the
bishop to exhibit a state of things quite different from
that which now exists. The fidelity of the picture, as a
representation of the present, can only be known by a
careful inspection. But the scandal which the publica-
tion of these conflicting documents would occasion will,
we may be sure, be avoided.

r

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 267

The emissary of the Ultramontanes, in his memorial,
combatted the ' liberal doctrines' which attempts had
been made to propagate amongst the French Canadians ;
and showed how ihe bishops, presumably by a rigorous
censorship of the Press, had prevented their expression.
In a separate memorial, the bishop went into an exposi-
tion of liberal doctrines since 1848, quoting from the
journals and speeches in which they had been advocated,
and pointing to the acts of the leaders ol the party, with
theviewof showing that the bishops in combatting Liber-
alism ha 1 only performed a necessary duty. He brought
before th .• notice of the Prefet of the Propaganda the at-
tacks which the Joint Letter had encountered. His
Eminence replied, the reporter tells us, that the doctrine
contained in that document is * perfectly sound, and con-
formable to the teachings of the Holy See.' As that
letter orders the cures to instruct the electors how to
vote, at political elections, and to visit the crime of refusal
with spiritual censures, the See of Rome has placed itself
in direct conflict with the civil law of Canada as inter-
preted by the highest court in the country.

Cardinal Franchi laid before Pope Pius IX. a brief
statement of the case, which probably afterwards formed
the substance of the brief which contains the decision of
this infallible Pontiff. The pro-Secretary of the Propa-
ganda also drew up an address to the same august person-
age, with the view of enabling him to pass an eulogy on
the Canadian episcopate. Mgr. Lafleche had a long au-
dience with the Pope, and drew up a written statement of
the case for his information. It was in reply that the
brief of the Pope was addressed to the Bishop of Three
Rivers. In communicating this Papal document to the
clergy of his diocese the bisiiop says : ' You will there see
that the infallible head of the Church fully approves of
the zeal of your first pastors in teaching you the holy doc-

268

ROME IN CANADA.

trine, exposed by textual citation from their Pastoral
Letter of September 22, 1875, and that His Holiness
highly extols their zeal in combatting liberal errors,' be-
sides renewing the condemnation of Catholic Liberalism.

The bishop ends with an exhortation to the faithtul to
follow the instructions ot the Joint Letter ; in other words,
to do what the Supreme Court and three judges of another
court, in their official capacity, have declared to be il-
legal, and which the law, as by the latter interpreted,
stigmatizes as a ' fraudulent manceuvre.'* The re.' ript
of the Pope is an invitation, a command, that the bishops
and the priests, acting in unison, shall trample underfoot
the laws of the land. It was the knowledge that such
things were liable to happen which caused so many Cath-
olic governments to submit to examination bulls, de-
crees and rescripts of the Popes, to ascertain whether they
contained anything which would make their publication
injurious to the State.

Archbishop Lynch took ground in direct opposition to
the joint pastoral. ' Priests may,' he says, ' instruct their
people on the conscientious obligation of voting for the
candidates whom they judge will best promote the in-
terests of the community ; ' ' but they are not to say to the
people from the altar that they are to vote for this candi-
date and reject the other.'f He goes further, .'^nd says
' it would be very imprudent in a priest, whose congrega-
tion is composed of Liberals and Conservatives ' — as all
congregations in both Provinces must be more or less —
' to become a warm partisan of either party,' as the priests
in Chambly, Charlevoix, and Bonaventure have certainly
done. The national spirit of the Irish Roman Catholics

• I shall not instinuate, as some have done, that Mgr. Lafleche inspired an article
in the Journal ties Trois Rlvikres, in which the ground is taken that ' the du»y ol
voting, or of directing voters, falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church ,
though his pastoral goes far to warrant that conclusion.

f Letter to the Hon, A. Mackenzie, Jan. 20, 1876.

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 269

of Ontario would almost certainly cause them to resent a
degree of clerical dictation which should fall far short of
that exercised in Quebec.

The brief of Pope Pius IX. dated September 13, 1876,
and addressed to the Bishop of Three Rivers, shows what
might from the first have been foreseen, that the victory
remains with the Ultramontanes. It sets out by thanking
the Canadian bishops for their affection and submission
to the Apostolic See, and insists on the necessity of
union. ' We rejoice chiefly,' the Pope says, 'at the care
you take to inculcate among the Canadian people sound
doctrine, and to explain to them what regards the nature,
the constitution, and the rights of the Church, the con-
ception of which it is customary to prevent with great
subtlety for the purpose of deceiving the faithful ; and we
have had to praise the zeal with which you have striven
to forewarn the same people against the crafty errors of
liberalisme called Catholique, the more dangerous that,
under an exterior appearance of piety, they deceive many
honest men, and that, tending to lead men away from the
true doctrine, especially on questions which at first sight
seem to concern rather the civil than the ecclesiastical
power, they enfeeble the faith, break the unity, divide the
Catholic forces, and furnish very efficacious aid to the
enemies of the Church, who teach the same errors, though
with greater display and impudence, and msensibly lead
men's minds to accept their perverse designs. We there-
fore congratulate you, and we hope that you will always
labour to unveil their snares and instruct the people with
a similar ardour, a like discernment, and with that concord
which shows to all your mutual charity, and proves that
each of you thinks and teaches only the same thing.
This will naturally happen if you carefully nourish in you
that devotion to the Chair of St. Peter, mistress of the
truth, which you profess in terms so strong and so
affectionate.'

J';l

370

ROME IN CANADA.

By reading the penultimate sentence in connection with
the text between the lines, a hint at a division among the
Episcopate may be gathered ; though it is so gentle that
it might easily escape the attention of a careless reader.

The Bishop ot Rimouski, in communicating the brief to
the clergy of his diocese, says much noise has been made
about a pastoral letter of his own as well as the
Joint Letter of the bishops. • Various commentaries,
more or less correct, numerous interpretations, more
or less exffct, have been made. Some have gone
so far as to desire to find a contradiction between
this bull* and the principles laid down in our pastoral
letter or the consequ> nces resulting from it.'t He appeals
to this brief to prove that ' the supreme head of the Church
formally approves the teaching contained in our letter
upon the constitution and rights of the Church, as well
as the nature and danger of liberalism called Catholic.'
Bishop Langevin, on the strength of the brief he is inter-
preting, bids the faithful ' understand more than ever that
in everything involving religious or social questions, you
are to receive the teachings and direction of the spiritual
authority, and to recognize as legitimate and salutary
its intervention (immixtion) and influence : * this,' he
adds by way of admission, ' is what many obstinately
refuse to admit.' In the bosom of the Church, * among
those who call themselves its children, who conform to
the externals of religion, who approach the sacraments,
there is a certain number who, whether wittingly or not,
insist on submitting the religious authority to the civil
power in mixed questions, on gagging its ministers and

* The bull canonically erecting the University of Laval.

^ This probably points to some words spoken by M. Tremblay at Chicoutimi
shortly before : Eh bien, cette \kntk pour laquelle nous avons coinbattu tous ensemble,
la possession de noa libertis politiques, elle nous a kii annoncd, climanche dernier, par
Notre Saint Pere le Pape luimime, par Mgr. I'Archeveque, dans la buUe et le mande-
inent vous ont k\.i lua.

THE BISHOPS CLAIMING POLITICAL CONTROL. 271

relegating them to the sacristy ; finally, all who, with
hypocritical professions of respect and submission on their
hps, aim at nothing less than the destruction of the action
of the Church in the things that belong to public life.'
This submission is demanded on the authority of the
papal brief.

In France the interference of the clergy in elections
has been much less marked than in Canada. Yet Gam-
betta, in a speech delivered at Lyons, after the Republican
triumph, said : ' It has become apparent to our people,
as well as to all Europe, that for five years, owing to
our misfortunes to our disasters, and perhaps also to our
weaknesses, under the pretext of withheld monarchical
rights, and of the restoration oi this or that dynasty, the true
leader of the reactionary coalition, the authority and
guide of all those dangerous combinations against the
liberty and future prosperity of the country, was clerical-
ism.' The ecclesiastical opinions of the reactionists of
France are echoed with tremendous exaggeration among
the French population of Quebec, as those of the Rouges
of 1848 — not one of the leaders of whom had then passed
the age of 22 years — in the words of M. W. Laurier,
' were based upon those of the revolutionists of France.'
Such is the inheritance which the sons of New France
receive from their original mother country, whence their
sires drew the maxims of a sturdy and independent
Gallicanism.

37a

ROME IN CANADA.

XIV.
SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

At every election that has taken place since the joint
pastoral was issued, the parish priests at Quebec have
made the walls of the sanctuary echo with the praise of
one candidate or party and the censure of the other.
They commence, as instructed by their superiors, by read-
ing the joint episcopal letter, and proceed to comment
upon it at great length, returning to the charge on
several successive occasions. Every sermon delivered
between the issuing of the writ of election and the day of
polling is a political harangue. Three striking illustra-
tions of this procedure have occurred : in Chambly, in
Charlevoix, and in Bonaventure.

M. Lussier, the cure of Boucherville, one of the first
on whom this new duty fell, did his best to avoid the
necessity of reading the Joint Letter ; but he was at last
obliged to act on peremptory orders of the Bishop of
Montreal.

This priest reports one of the candidates, Doctor For-
tier, as having announced himself a Rouge and a Moder-
ate Liberal. The attention of the Bishop of Montreal
having been called to this fact, he wrote to the cure
in these terms : ' Our Holy Father the Pope, and after him
the Archbishop and Bishops of this Province, have de-
clared that Catholic Liberalism is a thing to be regarded
with the abhorrence with which one contemplates a pes-
tilence : no Catholic is allowed to proclaim himself a
Moderate Liberal ; consequently this Moderate Liberal
cannot be elected a representative by Catholics.'

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

173

If the term Liberal Conservative had been used it
would have been equally the duty of the bishop, as the
agent of Rome, to denounce it. The Cotirrier du Canada,
with the aroma of the papal benediction about it, has dis-
carded as altogether unauthorized the qualifying word
Liberal ; and announces itself Conservative, pure and
simple.

M. Lussier has reported at length the commentaries
with which he accompanied the reading of the Joint Letter
ot the bishops.* From this explanation, v/e learn that the
bishops did not issue their letter without some trepida-
tion, foreseeing that it would excite hatred and passion
(bien des haines, bien des coleres). For this reason, M.
Lussier would have avoided the reading of the letter i
he could. He personally visited the bishop and stated
that he had read to the parishioners his lordship's pastoral
letter ; on which the bishop remarked, ' You have done
well.'

The cure asked what more there was for him to do.
The bishop replied, • You are to read the letter of the
bishops.'

' But,' resumed the cure, * permit me to say that I fear
to excite the murmurs of some of the parishioners.'

' We must not fear to speak the truth,' the bishop said,
by way of command ; ' in desiring to be too prudent we
compromise ourselves.'

The letter was read, in pursuance of the bishop's direc-
tion. When the priest came to the phrase, ' The State
is in the Church, and not the Church in the State,' he
undertook to refute * the maxim invented by Liberalism ,
** A free Church in a free State." He told the parishioners
what would be the penalty ot their refusing to obey his
directions. * I explained,' he says, * how the Church deals
with error ; I said she commences by pointing out the

See the Nouvtau-Uondt, Feb. i . 1876.

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274

ROME IN CANADA.

danger; she puts the faithful on their guard against
novelties ; she instructs, enlightens, and exhorts them ;
and if after this they remain in error and refuse to sub-
mit themselves, she launches her thunders against them
and declares them excluded from her bosom.' In this
way M. Lussier interpreted and carried out his instruc-
tions.* The sermon received the approval of the bishop.

These threats, instead of being received with the abso-
lute docility and submission which the bishops demand
from the faithful, raised a storm of indignation : many per-
sons, M. Lussier does not hesitate to state, went so
far as to stigmatize the letter of the bishops as a menda-
cious document ; conduct which the priest denounces as
blasphemouij. ' If,' he says, • the bishops, speaking with
the Pope, deceive themselves and say what is not true, it
follows that the Holy Spirit deceives himself and is a
liar ; for it is he who has appointed the bishops to rule
the Church of God.'f

This is here a hopeful sign. In the opposition of the
Roman Catholics themselves to the tyranny of the hiera-
rchy lies the hope of a remedy : they alone can be the
saviours of their own liberty.

But M. Lussier, in obeying the commands of his super-
ior, did not perform his task in a half-hearted or merely
perfunctory manner. With whatever reluctance, he
did his work thoroughly. He concluded his sermon in
these words : ' It is necessary to explain myself clearly,
for I see that many do not understand. The candidate
who spoke last Sunday called himself a Moderate Liberal.
As Catholics you cannot vote for him ; you cannot vote
for a Liberal, nor for a Moderate Liberal for moderate
is only another term for liar. One must be either Pro-

* M. Lussier is a doctor of canon law, a distinction not often conferred. He re-
sided many years at Rome, and there thoroughly inbibed the spirit of the Vatican,
i Lettre Ue M. Lussier, Jan. 3, 1S76.

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

275

testant or Catholic ; you cannot remain Catholics with-
out saying your prayers. When you recite the symbol of
the apostles you say, " I believe in God and in the Koly
Church, etc." Now the Church condemns Liberalism.
You cannot remain Catholics and vote for a Liberal. *

What M. Lussier and the other parish priests of Cham-
bly did the cures of Charlevoix were doing almost at the
same time, and doing with a will. In this case, the facts
have been disclosed by no less than one hundred and
fitty witnesses, in an investigation before Judge Routhier,
having for its object the annulling of the election, chiefly
on account of the undue influence exercised by the priests.
The trial lasted six weeks.

The Charlevoix election took place in the beginning of
the year 1876. The priests held a consultation to decide
upon their, candidate. The choice fell on M. Langevin,
Conservative, the other candidate being M. Tremblay, a
Liberal, so-called. In obedience to instructions, the cures
read and commented on the Joint Letter; and sometimes
the personal influence of the Archbishop was mentioned.
The general drift of their remarks was that they were tv/o
flags : one blue, the flag of the Pope, the other red, the flag
ot Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel. The red flag meant
revolution and damnation, the worst evils that could befall
anyone both in this world and the next. The blue flag
meant present prosperity and eternal happiness. At
least one priest terrified the electors by telling them that
to vote for the partisans of the red flag would be to incur
the guilt of mortal sin. Another told the electors that
he, not they, was responsible for the use they would make
of the elective franchise.

Some of the cures preached several times on the sub-
ject of the election ; and all of them reserved their
greatest eff'ort for the Sunday belore the voting. M.

* See Souveau-Monde, JdLn. 25, 1876.
18

m

276

ROME IN CANADA.

Sirois, of Baie St. Paul, stigmatized the candidate of the red
flag as a talse Christ and a false prophet. If he succeeded
in getting elected, tithes would be abolished, the priests
would have to be supported by the Government, and the
pressure of the taxation would become intolerable. The
parishioners were as much bound to listen to the priest
when elections were in progress as at any other time. Re-
fusal to listen to to the cure on the question of voting was
disobedience to the Pope. Liberalism must be crushed. If
the electors listened to the false prophets a terrible chastise-
njent would fall on the country, perhaps in the des'truc-
tion of the greater part of the harvest ; if the electors
failed to listen to their cure, chastisements would speedily
overtake them. The electors were, after all, to vote ac-
cording to their conscience ; not simply according to their
conscience, but ' according to their conscience, enlight-
ened by the mandement of the bishops of Quebec' The
simple peasants saw and noted the contradiction. The
intelligence of the electors had been rated too low.

A strange use was made of the word conscience. Not
only was it represented that the conscience unenlightened
by the instructions of the episcopate, was a conscience
not at liberty to act ; it was at liberty to act when it was
bound by these instructions, and was no longer free.
If a man's conscience is not his own, and if it is not free,
appeals to it are a mockery and a snare.

The sermons of M. Sirois awakened many fears and
changed many votes.

M. Langlais, cure of St. Hilarion, told the electors
that to vote for a Liberal was to set out on the road to
hell. Is it a matter of surprise that the simple peasants,
who repose unbounded confidence in their priests, should
have recoiled before so terrible a danger ? One witness
swore that, after he was made aware of this terrible fact,
he did not see how he could vote for M. Tremblay, the

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

27

candidate of his choice. ♦ My religious belief,' he said,
' as a Catholic, is that those who act in opposition to reli-
gion and their pastors go to hell when they die.' ' Of
myself,' said the same witness, ' I knew nothing, and I
relied on the instructions of one worthy ol confidence.'

It was a common remark among the congregation,
after they had left the church, that, according to the
cure, the members of the Rouge party would infallibly be
damned. Some who did not change their votes were
frightened into abstention.*

Another witness, Zephirin Savard, thought one-third
of the electors had been changed by the influence of the
cure of St. Hilarion, exercised during a pastoral visit.
This fact was probably not without its influence in moving
the Archbishop of Quebec, in his pastoral of May 25, to
prohibit the cures from discoursing on politics while on
pastoral visits. • I was afraid,' said one elector to another,
* that if I voted forTremblay, I should be damned.' Who-
ever voted for the Liberals, said another priest, engaged
in the service of hell. The fear of damnation, as the
consequence of voting in a particular way, operated most
strongly on the minds of the women, and they naturally
influenced their husbands to avoid so great a danger.

Some evidence contradicting, on some points, what
had been said by the witnesses for the plaintifl was pro-
duced by the defendant. The two pomts which the de-
fence tried to make were, that the priests spoke as citi-
zens and not in their official capacity of cures, and that
they did not say that to vote in a particular way would
be a mortal sin. On the latter point, the weight of the
evidence was altogether against the priests.

* Octave Simard, a witness, said : Je ne sals pas si c'est pour avoir mat compris qu'4
la sorti de I'iglise les gens en s'en retoarnant ches euz ont dit que le cuti avait dit
que les sens du parti rouge itaient tous damnte. Par parti rouge on voulait parler
du parti dc M. Treinblay. II y a des ilcctcurs qui m'ont dit qu'ils n'avait paa voti k
cause de ces paroles du cnri.

278

ROME IN CANADA.

But whatever objections may be made to the evidence
ior the plaintiff, there is a kind of evidence, the statements
of the priests themselves, which their defenders will have
to accept without question. The cure of Ste. Fidele, in the
justification of his conduct which he sent to the Arch-
bishop, admits that he said : ' If I had to pronounce on
the present conflict, I could not, with my knowledge, do
so in favour of a Government which calls itself Liberal,
nor for any man who supports that Government.'

The cure of St. Hilarion also sent in his defence to the
Archbishop, in the shape of a statement of what he had
said in his sermons, and to which he procured the attesta-
tion of a number of his parishioners. His word of
command was: 'Vote according to your conscience enlight-
ened by your superiors. Do not forget that the bishops
of the Province assure you that Liberalism resembles the
serpent which crawls in the terrestrial paradise, to procure
the fall of the human race.' * According to your bishops,'
he further said, *the Liberals are deceivers whom you
will not follow unless you wish to be deceived. Liberal-
ism is condemned by our Holy Father the Pope. The
Church only condemns v/hat is evil, and as Liberalism
has been condemned Liberalism is evil : therefore you
ought not to give your suffrages to a Liberal. So the
bishops have openly declared.' The bishops had said
that to vote in a certain sense was a sin, but that in fol-
lowing the direction of the bishops they could not sin. It
was not enough that a candidate should be a Catholic to
merit their suffrages, for not only was the man to be con-
sidered, but also * his political principles, as well as the
principles of the Government he supports.' The cure
reminded his parishioners that they would have to give an
account to God, and he asked them whether in the hour
of death they would like to find themselves on ll^e

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

279

side of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel or of the Sovereign
Pontiff and his bishops.

One priest, and one alone, the Rev. M. Cinq Mars,
cure of St. Simeon, was heard as a witness. He protested,
as required by his superiors to do, against the competence
of the tribunal. But as the Archbishop had waived the
question of immunity and authorized the summoning of
the priests before the court, M. Cinq Mars did not refuse
to appear or to give his evidence. He swore positively
that he had not made the remark imputed to him.

M. Cinq Mars produced the Joint Letter of the bishops
as authority for what he had done and a command to do
it. He had told the electors that the mandements of the
bishops were binding sub grave, that is, under pain of a
grave sin. It is easy to understand that for a parish priest
removable at the pleasure of the bishop there might be
only the alternative of obedience or starvation.* The
priests, therefore, when they reluctantly carry out the
orders of their superiors, are deserving of sympathy ; but
when, in the blindness of their zeal, they go beyond these
instructions, and have to defend their conduct before their
ecclesiastical superiors, they pass the line of innocence
and of what they can reasonably consider their duty.

It is quite evident, from the effect which tliese sermons
produced, that the priests in their political harangues
from the pulpit went beyond the point to which they could
carry their parishioners with them. What had happened
in Chambly happened in Charlevoix. In his evidence regard-
ing a sermon preached at Baie St. Paul, Boniface La Bouche
said : ' The sermon made so great a tumult that several

♦ No less than thirty-four changes of priests were made in the diocese of Quebec, in
September, 1876, eighteen in the diocese of St. Hyacinthe, and twelve in that of Three
Rivers. One cure in the diocese of Quebec, J. S. Martel, refused to accept the parish
offered to him in exchange. In September, 1877, between thirty and forty changes
were made in the diocese of Montreal, twenty-seven in the diocese of St. Hyacinthe,
and between twenty and thirty in the diocese of Quebec.

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ROME IN CANADA.

i I M
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persons left the church, and four electors, heated by the
sermon of the cure, fell to fighting after they had engaged
in political discussion.' The sermon of the cure of St.
Hilarion was found equally distasteful to the congregation
before whom it was preached. Several persons, to mark
their disapprobation of the political harangue, left the
church before it was concluded. At the end of the sermon
the cure alluded to this tacit protest as a scandal, and
said : * Woe unto him by whom scandal comes.'

A knowledge of the opposition which these sermons
provoked must have been a motive to the Archbishop to
call the halt in his pastoral of May, 1876, which was so
great a surprise at the time, when it was not understood.
The temper of the laity had been tested in two constitu-
encies, and it was evident that many electors were prepared
to resent the clerical repression that had been put upon
them.

A long statement, purporting to be an analysis of the
sermon of M. Sirois, cure of Bale St. Paul, which had
been sent to the Archbishop, was put in, on the part of
the defendant. The duty of the electors, the cure had told
them, was to follow his instructions. 'While I, preaching
sound doctrine,' he said, * am in communion with my
bishop, you ought to listen to me and obey me ; I am here
your legitimate pastor, and consequently charged to en-
lighten, instruct, and counsel you ; if you disregard (me-
prisez) my word, you disregard that of the bishop, that
of the Pope, and that of the Saviour, by whom we are
sent.'

The Canadian law on the subject of undue influence is
a copy of the English law. The principle of the English
law applicable to the exercise of undue influence by the
clergy was first laid down by Sir Samuel Romilly.
* Undue influence,' he said, ' will be used if ecclesias-
tics make use of their powers to excite superstitious fears

I

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

281

or pious hopes ; to inspire, as the object may be best pro-
moted, despair or confidence ; to alarm the conscience by
the horrors of eternal misery, or support the drooping
spirits by untolding the prospect of eternal happiness.'

This precedent was followed by Baron Fitzgerald, in
the Mayo contested election, 1857, and the election was
annulled on the ground that spiritual intimidation had
been made use of. Speaking of what the priest may do
and may not do in this respect, the judge said : ' He may
not appeal to the fears, or terrors, or superstition of those
whom he addresses. He must not hold out the hope ot
reward here or hereafter, and he must not use threats of
temporary injury, or of disadvantage or punishment here-
after ; he must not, tor instance, threaten to excommuni-
cate or to withhold the sacraments, or to expose the party
to any other religious disability, or denounce the voting
for any particular candidate as a sin, or an offence in-
volving punishment here or hereafter. If he does so with
a view to influence a voter, the law considers him guilty

of undue influence As priestly influence is

so great we must regard its exercise with extreme jealousy,
and seek by the utmost vigilance to keep it within due
and proper bounds.'

The Joint Letter of the bishops of Quebec instructs the
priests to do precisely what Baron Fitzgerald decided
that the priests of Ireland cannot do.

The judgment of Judge Routhier in the Charlevoix
case has a striking family likeness to that which he de-
livered in the cause of Derouin vs. Archambault, and
which was reversed on appeal. The same false principles
are encountered in both judgments. The second contains
a quotation from the first, to the effect that the free ex-
ercise of the Roman Catholic religion, stipulated for at
the time of the conquest, implies the operation of the ec-
clesiastical law of Rome in Quebec ; though the Privy

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ROME IN CANADA.

'II

Council holds, and Mgr. Destautels has expressed the
same opinion, that the ecclesiastical law in force in that
Province is the eccleciastical law of France as it stood
in the year 1759. France never could have intended to
stipulate that Rome should enjoy, in the Province which
was changing masters, privileges which she had herself
refused to her, both at home and in the colony. Judge Rou-
thier denies that the Crown, from which he holds his
comujission, could confer on him any jurisdiction in spiri-
tual matters ; which means that he recognizes a higher
law than the law of the land which Parliaments and
Legislatures enact. He undertakes to say, what no one
could know, that if the priests had not interfered at all,
the result of the election would have been the same. That
the priest should not be the only person in the community
forbidden to instruct the electors in their duty will readily
be conceded ; and with ' the liberty of Christian preach-
ing' no one, at this time of day, wishes to interfere. But
there are many things which it is not permissible to do
under pretence of exercising ihis liberty. What would
be a libel out of the pulpit, is no way privileged in it ; and
what would be illegal intimidation out of the pulpit does
not change its nature when uttered in the pulpit. The
priest is not denied the enjoyment of civil and political
rights; but intimidation is not a right; it is always and
everywhere exercised in derogation ofthe rights of others.
Voting, Judge Routhier says, is a moral act ; and we
are asked to conclude that that fact brings the Catholic
voter under the canon law of Rome, gives him over ab-
solutely to the control of the Church in the performance of
this act, and ousts the Legislature and the civil tribunals
of their respective jurisdiction. The priests, according to
this docl rine, in acting as they did, were within the limits
of their own domain, accomplishing their pastoral duties,
as the guardians of morality, and did not encroach on

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

283

the rights of the State, which has neither the authority
nor the competence to deal with the matter. If these
assumptions be accepted, it follows that the law uuder
which the Galway election was set aside was no law at
all. Ultramontane writers, we all know, teach that what
the Church chooses to stigmatize as unjust laws, 'are
violences rather than laws, and do not bind the conscience.'*
If a priest refuses the sacraments to an elector for having
voted for the wrong candidate. Judge Routhier can only
refer him to the bishop. But the priest had, in the
whole, matter, acted in obedience to the orders of the
bishop, or of the entire Episcopate of the Province. If
you ask the wrong-doer to sit in judgment on his own act
and that of his agent, what satisfaction do you expect ?
Judge Routhier somewhat scornfully rejects English pre-
cedents as inapplicable to a country where the hand of
Rome is much more felt than in England ; and he holds that
the text of the law of Quebec does not include»priests in
its denunciation of intimidation and undue influence.

Let us see what would be some of the consequences of
sustaining this judgment. The plain meaning of it is
that the canon law of Rome, having superseded in this
country the ecclesiastical law of France, must henceforth
have unrestricted force and effect. Let us suppose the
case of a person excommunicated for some alleged offence,
in the civil or political order, over which the Church
claims jurisdiction on the ground that a question of mol-
ality is involved ; let us further suppose that the victim
remains under excomunication for a year ; he must then,
by the canons of the Council of Trent, be regarded as a
heretic, and be handed over to the tender mercieo of the In-
quisition. If this were to happen, the civil power would,
if Judge Routhier be accepted as authority, be unable

* Brownson, Conversations on Liberalism and the Church. Rev. Alexis Pellr-
tier.

••4 ROME IN CANADA.

to protect the subject whose life was menaced for what,
in the eye of the civil law, might be no crime at all. This
is only one example of the thousand monstrosities
which might be perpetrated if the canon law of Rome had
full and unchecked course in this country. Ecclesiastical
immunities would extend not onl}' to persons but to pro-
perty ; the orders of the Pope would be binding on the
faithf ul.whetherthey related to the spiritual or the temporal
order. The civil lawswould count for nothing.ifthedoctrine
were accepted that the temporal power is subordinate to
the spiritual power of the Pope; and short of this it is
impossible to stop if the canon law of Rome is to be ac-
cepted as having unrestrained force in Canada. It would
have been easy to find Italian priests who would have re-
jected with indignation these pretensions at a time when
the League was spreading desolation through France,
when Jacques Clement assassinated Henry III.,and French
priests refused to pray for the king.*

Id the Supreme Court, judgments were delivered by Mr.
Justice Taschereau and Mr. Justice Ritchie. The former
said that he and the other Catholic judges of the court
felt themselves in a difficult position in consequence of
the decision oi three eminent judges ofthe Superior Court
of Quebec having been severely blamed by an eminent
member of the Episcopate for a judgment which they had
delivered in an almost identical case, a judgment which he
regarded as an important precedent. If an Ultramontane
bishop has already embarrassed the judges ofthe highest
court in Canada, what may some future bishop not hope
to achieve in the same direction ? Mr. Justice Taschereau
held that the agency of the clergy whose conduct was
complained of had been clearly proved. M. Langevin
had only consented to become a candidate on an assur-
ance, obtained through M. Gauthier, that the clergy ot

* See Histoire de Venise, par le Comte Daru, livre XXIX., pp. 66-7.

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

28s

the county would support him. After he entered on the
campaign, and had held personal conferences with the
clergy, he stated at public meetings that they were favour-
able to him, and that the electors ought to listen to the
voice of their pastors. Many cures denounced the
opposing candidate in their sermons. These cures, by
taking part in the election with the consent of M.
Langevin, became his agents.

These sermons, Mr. Justice Taschereau held, created in
the minds of many electors a dread of committing a
grievous sin and being deprived of the sacraments. ' There
is here,' he said, 'an exerting of undue influence of the
worst kind, inasmuch as these threats and these declara-
tions fell from the lips of the priests speaking from the
pulpit in the name of religion, and were addressed to per-
sons ill-instructed and generally well disposed to follow the
counsels of their cures.' He thought these sermons, though
they may have had no influence on the intelligent and
instructed portion ol the hearers, must have influenced
the majority of persons void of mstrucfion. Although the
secret mode of voting made it impossible to point to more
than six or eight persons who had been influenced to vote
against their natural inclination, it was proved that a
large number changed their views through this undue
influence. But proof of a single instance of the exercise
of undue influence was sufficient to annul an election,
though the candidate in whose favour it was exerted
should have had an overwhelming majority of votes.
Taking the evidence as a whole, Mr. Justice Taschereau
thought it was clear that a general system of intimidation
had been practised, and as a consequence undue influ-
ence exercised ; the electors did not consider themselves
free in the exercise cf the elective franchise. The court
was unanimously of the opinion that the four cures, Cinq
Mars, Sirois, Langlais, and Tremblay, had exercised

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ROME IN CANADA.

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mm

undue influence, and that being agents of the respondent
their acts bound their principal. The election was
declared void, with caets against the respondent, less
some part of the cost of printing.

On the question of clerical immunity, which the advo-
cate for the respondent ha J raised the court expressed a
very strong opinion, to which reference will be made
when we come to deal with the immunities of the clergy.

It had been contended, during the progress of this suit,
that the Legislature, in adopting the English election law,
never intended to debar the exercise of clerical terror and
intimidation. To this objection Mr. Justice Ritchie
replied. He said: 'On the principles of common law,
on the construction of the language of the Act, of which
we entertain no doubt, we cannot for a moment doubt
that it is our duty to declare that undue spiritual influence
is prohibited by statute.' The clergyman, like the layman,
has the liberty of 'free and full discussion, solicitation,
advice, persuasion ; ' but he ' has no right in the pulpit
or out, by threatening any damage, temporal or spiritual,
to restrain the liberty of a voter so as to compel or
frighten him into voting, or abstaining from voting, other-
wise than as he freely wills.' If he does so, the law regards
the act as ^he exercise of undue influence.

These judgments settle the law. What then follows?
Seven of the bishops have expressed their confidence that
they will be able to procure an alteration of the law ;* a
confidence based on the readiness with which the Legis-
lature of Quebec hastened, in a similar case, to yield to
the demands of the Church. Nevertheless it is extremely
improbable that the Dominion Parliament will be found to
be equally compliant. This Act of the Local Legislature
was intended to enable the bishops to inflict ecclesiastical

* Declaration de I'archeveque et des 6veques de la Province ecclesiastique de Que-
bec, au sujet de la loi Electorate, Quebec, 26 Mars, 1877.

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

287

punishment for a refusal to bow to the decrees ol the
Congregation ol the Index and the Inquisition. An
amendment to the election law, in these words, has been
suggested : ' Nothing in the preceding provisions shall
apply to the words of a minister of religion pronounced in
the exercise of his duty as such.'f This is the nev/ pro-
gramme.

The conflict between the civil and the ecclesiastical
authorities has taken a very definite shape. On one side is
the highest judicial tribunal in the country, on the other
the entire Roman Catholic Episcopate of Quebec,
sanctioned by the express approbation ol Pope Pius IX.

The judgment in the Bonaventure election case deliv-
ered by Judge Casault agrees in principle with that of the
Supreme Court. The Provincial Act, under which these
cases come, is copied word for word from the ' Corrupt Prac-
tices Prevention Act of 1854 ; ' and as it has several times
been held to include this kind of intimidation. Judge Cas-
ault thinks it would be an insult to the Legislature of Que-
bec to assume,asJudgeRouthier did in effect, that its mem-
bers were ignorant of the facts. The argument, founded
on tht treaty of cession, that Roman Catholic priests may
trample on the civil laws because the French Canadians
were guaranteed the free exercise ol their religion, ' as
far as the laws of England will permit,' went lor nothing.
These words-—' as far as the laws of England permit ' —
seemed to the judge * to restrict, in a very lormal manner,
what the defendant pretends to be one of the freedoms ot
the exercise of the Catholic religion : that ot being able, in
preaching, to practise intimidation, and thus to limit,
if not to destroy, the electoral franchise.' When the
treaty was made, representative institutions had long
existed in England ; and both ' the law of parliament and
the common law consecrated absolute freedom in the ex-

i Frogr.rmmtot the Nouveau-^'jHde, in the Minerve Oct. 3, 1877.

a88

ROME IN CANADA.

ercise of this franchise. If it weie possible that some<
thing in the Catholic religion could be an obstacle thereto,
this something would have been contrary to the laws of
England, and would have been within the limit found in
the treaty itacif.' Attacks upon the liberty of the elec-
tor were prohibited at the epoch of the treaty. The
present law ' has not and cannot have the eflfect of res-
training the exercise of the Catholic religion, or ol render-
ing it less tree.'

The intimidation proved to have taken place was prac-
tised by two cures, named Thivierge and Gagne. To
what the first said there were fifteen witnesses, and to
what the second said eleven. The witnesses differed
much, but without contradicting one another. • It is con-
ceivable,* said Judge Casault, * that the account given
by illiterate fishermen and farmers of a sermon they
heard a year before must be more than incomplete, and
may perhaps be incorrect.' When it is considered that
more than three-fourths of the French Canadians in the
rural districts can neither read nor write, the influence of
the priest must be almost omnipotent. Two priests
alarmed the electors by stating that if they voted in a
particular way they would incur the penalty of a refusal
of the sacraments. For this menace the authority ot
the diocesan was alleged. But this authorization, if it
had really been given, would afford no warrant for the
menace.

Not only was the election annulled on account of the
undue influence exercised by these two priests : M. Beau-
chesne was disqualified because the judges conceived
they were obliged to report • that these fraudulent
manoeuvres were practised with his knowledge and con-
sent.' What Judge Routhier called the liberty of preach-
ing, three other judges denounce as ' fraudulent manoeu-
vres.'

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

289

The court, comprising three judges, Messieurs Casault,
McGuire, and McCord, unanimously declared that the
clergy is at liberty to express its opinion on political
questions ; but that the menace of spiritual penalties con-
stitutes undue influence. Judge McCord held, that to
escape disqualification for the words used by the priests
in his presence it would have been necessary for M.
Beauchesne to repudiate them in express terms on the
spot.

The question whether Judge Cassault should be de-
prived of his chair in the University of Laval, for the
offence of delivering this judgment was sent to Rome,
and decided in his favour by the Sacred Congregation.*
The reference of this question shows the liability of
Canadian judges, who happen to be Roman Catholics,
to be censured at Rome for judgments they may deliver.

The Bishop of Rimouski, in a mandement of the 15th
January, 1877, denounced the judgment of Mr. Justice
Casault with defiant energy. He never could have
thought, he declares, that such a judgment could have
been received in Canada otherwise than with universal
reprobation. He finds that it sins by being in unison
with several of the propositions condemned in the Sylla-
bus ;t and he informs all concerned that Catholic judges
cannot in conscience administer civil laws such as that]^
which controls parliamentary elections in Quebec ; i
they find any difficulties about the oath of office they
have taken, he is ready with authority to prove that, in
such a case, it does not bind the conscience 4 and he calls
upon the Legislature to disclaim ever having intended to
say what the words of the statute clearly express. With

* Letter of Bishop Conroy, Apostolic Delegate to Canada, to the Archbishop of
Quebec, Oct. 3, 1877.

t Props. XLL, XIIL, LIV.

{ St. Lig. I, III., Nos. 146 ct 176.

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ROME IN CANADA.

him preaching inchides the right of coercion, in so purely
a civil matter as the choice of parliamentary candidates,
by a menace to refuse the sacraments to offenders. For
the Church alone he claims the right to say what limits
the priest may not overstep under the pretence of preach-
ing. This claim, if conceded, would make the civil au-
thority powerless to check one of the most dangerous
forms of attack on the freedom of the elective franchise, or
to punish libels uttered under the shadow of the sanctu-
ary. Taking the expression * undue' to be equivalent to
• illegitimate,' Bishop Langevin argues that nothing can
be undue which a priest has been commanded by his
superiors to do ; and that the destruction of the freedom of
election, it effected under orders, is a pious duty. In the
priest, he sees not the master but only the dispenser of
the sacrament ; and when the Church prescribes a refusal
of sacraments, his duty is to obey. The difficulty is that
the bishops have placed themselves in opposition to the
civil law, which restrains no man's conscience and re-
stricts no man's true liberty, and which is designed to
secure the freedom of election. If we may judge by the
tone and attitude assumed by Bishop Langevin, the Epis-
copate is prepared to carry the conflict it has evoked
to the bitter end. He is scandalized that we have arrived
at — he ought to have said revived — the Appel comme
d'Abus, though even this would scarcely be an accurate
description of the actual proceeding.

The question has been asked whether the clergy exer-
cised an influence undue and condemnable when, in 1775,
they denounced from the pulpit the attempt of the Ameri-
can Congress, through- its emissaries in the Province, to
seduce the French Canadians from their allegiance;
whether the pastoral letters of 1837, which had for their
object to keep the Canadians from joining in the insurrec-
tion, are to be placed in the same condemned category.

i

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT ELECTIONS.

291

There is no sort of parallel between the two classes of
cases ; between counselling the people to be true to the
national allegiance, in a moment of public peril, and de-
nouncing ecclesiastical pc Ities against electors for vot-
ing for this or refusing to vote for that candidate of this
or that party. And though Bishop Lartigue, in his pas-
toral of October 24, 1837, said: *He that resisteth the
power resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that
resist purchase to themselves damnation,' he denounced
no spiritual censures against those who took part in the
rebellion, and did not authorize the priests to refuse them
the sacraments. Nor has it been shown that any such
weapons as are now used to compel obedience — and
there could then be no question of voting — were resorted
to by the Canadian clergy in 1775.

Instances might be pointed to in which, under the
reign of the oligarchy, a Lower Canada Governor, acting
under the ins^^' ion of the dominant faction, tried to
compel a pr' .0 prostitute his influence in favour of the
Government candidate ; in which, in Nova Scotia, priests
were required to use the knowledge obtained, or which it
was assumed they might obtain, in the confessional, to
compel the restitution of stolen goods, in a particular
case ; in which political parties sought the aid of bishops
and priests in party contests. But though these things are
not to be justified, it cannot be denied that the clergy, once
beingtempted into the political arena, would soon tire of the
ancillary position assigned to them, and come to defend
their right to use their influence solely on behalf of the
Church, which more or less remotely means themselves.
But no government or party which invoked the aid of the
Roman Catholic clergy ever asked them to make use of
ecclesiastical penalties in its favour.

Other sermons, respecting which there lias been no

question in the courts, have been quite as bad as those
19

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ROME IN CANADA.

regarding which evidence was given in the election trials.
One such sermon was preached by the Rev. Alexis
Pelletier, at Baie St. Paul, in 1876. It is necessary to
salvation, he told the congregation, to accept all the teach-
ing of the Pope without exception. He represented it as an
act oi grave culpability on the part of electors to criticize,
censure, or treat with contempt, words addressed from
the pulpit with a view of directing electors * in the
choosing of a candidate and of voting,' because ' these are
the words of God.' That is, in plain English, a political
harangue pronounced by a priest is to be taken as a mes-
sage from heaven ! Still, Roman Catholic congregations
do sometimes revolt against the priest when he delivers
such a message, and what is more, ' treat him with a
degree of rudeness, and even of brutality, which are no
longer found among savages.' The lesson which a sensible
man would draw from such an occurrence would be that
the interference of the priest in secular affairs had been
carried beyond the bounds of prudence. But this preacher
claims that the Church has a right ' to interfere with
sovereign authority, which all are bound to respect,' m
questions of legislation connected with the laying of taxes,
the framing of tariffs, with immigration and colonization.
And if laws contrary to the laws of the Church, and
which, according to her interpretation, clash with the
divine law, are passed, it becomes a duty to disobey them
(nousdevons alors lui refuser obeissance). For 'the priest,
however humble he may be, transmits ' to his hearers
' the teachings of Jesus Christ, and all, learned and ignor-
ant, ought to receive them from his lips with profound
respect and perfect humility."'' This has an important
bearing on civil allegiance, and it raises the question
whether we are to live under civil or ecclesiastical rule.
These pastoral letters and political sermons mark the

• Printed in Le Fianc-ParUur, 22 Aoi'it, 1S7G.

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM AT LLECTIONS.

293

Strides which the Church of Rome in Canada has made
since the conquest. Under the French regime, the eccle-
siastics of Canada were forbidden to read, or to cause to
be read, either in the churches or at the church doors,
any other writings than such as related to purely eccle-
siastical matters.

To the priest no one d'jsires to deny the rights of the
citizen. He is allowed to vote as well as to speak and
write on political questions. When he oversteps the line
of persuasion, and abuses the powers of his sacred office
to constrain, by mf.ans of spiritual terrors, electors to
vote against their natural inclination, he becomes amen-
able to the law ^vhich guards the rights of the citizen
from undue influence and intimidation. The law was not
made specially ibr him ; its terms are general, and apply
to all kinds of undue influence. In not exempting the
priest from its purview, the law places him on the same
footing as the layman.

«94

ROME IN CANADA.

XV.

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

The Roman Catholic Episcopate of Quebec forbids
members of that communion to have recourse to the civil
tribunals when they have suffered injustice at the hands
of an ecclesiastic. ' The Church,' they say, ' has its
tribunals, regularly constituted, and if any one believes
that he has a right to complain of a minister of the Church
he ought not to cite him before a civil tribunal but before
an ecclesiastical tribunal, which alone is competent to
judge of the doctrine and the acts of the priest. For this
reason Pius IX., in his bull Apostoliccs Sedis of October,
1869, declares to be under the excommunication major
all who directly or indirectly oblige lay judges to cite
before their tribunal ecclesiastical persons, contrary to the
dispositions of the canon law.'*

When the priest converts the pulpit into a political
rostrum, under the direction of the bishops, it is natural
that the latter should attempt to shield him from the con-
sequences of his conduct by making inadmissible claims
of clerical immunity. In the Circular which accompanied
the Joint Letter, they instruct the priests whenever
called upon to answer, before a civil court, for an abuse
of spiritual authority, to protest against the competence
of the tribunal, and claim the right to have the case adju-
dicated upon by an ecclesiastical tribunal ; and this, as
we have seen, was done in the Charlevoix election trial.

When the cures received these directions, they were at
a. loss to understand what was meant by the words

* Lettrt Pastorale des Eiijues, Sept. 22, 1875.

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY,

aw

' against the dispositions of the canon law,' and they
asked explanations.

This led the bishops to undertake to answer, in another
circular.t the question : * "What, at present, are the dis-
positions of the canon law with respect to persons and
things ecclesiastical ? ' The Church, they say, while
maintaining the principle of absolute immunity, is never-
theless guided by the circumstances in which her children
find themselves placed in different countries, and she
tolerates what she cannot correct without exposing them
to serious inconvenience. Benoit XIV. is quoted to prove
that lay judges ought not to be permitted to hear spiritual
causes ; and that while new usurpations of the civil power
on ecclesiastical immunities are to be opposed, the attempt
to correct existing abuses is not to be made when it is
evident that to do so would be useless and imprudent.

The Quebec bishops define as strictly ecclesiastical
causes those in which the • defendant is an ecclesiastic or
a member of a religious order, and the object in litigation
is of a spiritual character, or is connected with something
possessing that character, or with the exercise of some
function of the ministry.'

The rule laid down by the Second Council of Baltimore
is adopted : that in case of a difference arising between
an ecclesiastic and a secular person, the former is not to
cite the latter before a civil tribunal unless the difficulty
cannot be otherwise dealt with. And that Council exhorts
the faithful to refer ecclesiastical causes to the decision
of the bishop, instead of bringing them before the civil
tribunals. The Council adds that one ecclesiastic bring-
ing another before a civil tribunal thereby incurs eccle-
siastical censures.

The Quebec bishops instruct the priests to exhort, in a
general way, the faithful not to commence processes of

t November 14th, 1873.

ROME IN CANADA.

l-!l

iM

!:i '!

this kind without havingconsulted their pastor, their con-
fessor, or still better, the bishop, lest they should fall under
the major excommunication fulminated by Pius IX.

It is important to understand in nhat consist the
'regular ecclesiastical tribunals' of the Church of Rome,
in the Province of Quebec, which, in the cases mentioned,
are to supersede the civil courts. The tribunal, in the
absence of a regular bishop's court (Officialite) must con-
sist of the bishop or some person whom he has appointed
to act for him. ' A bishop,' the Lords of Privy Council
said in the Guibord case, 'is always a. judex ordinarins,
according to the canon law, may hold a court and de-
liver judgment if he has not appointed an official to act
for him.' But the next sentence shows that the question
which the bishops can so deal with are confined to * faith
and discipline.'

The Quebec bishops, however, go beyond these limits
when they lay it down broadly that a layman is not at
liberty to cite a priest before a civil tribunal. Their second
circular would seem to show that they found it impossible
rigidly to maintain this position, for they produce author-
ity for making exceptions. In the fifty-four days that
elapsed between their first and their second joint circular,
they probably received hints from the clergy that it would
not be wise at present to bend the bow too far.

Whatever relaxation of the rigid rule laid down is ad-
mitted, it does not necessarily avert the stroke of the
major excommunication. The sum of the matter is this :
Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in the Province
of Quebec who may have suffered injustice at the hands
of an ecclesiastic, cannot appeal to the civil tribunals for
justice, without being in danger of incurring the major
excommunication. Most certainly the law of the land in
no way countenances this pretension.

There is no doubt whatever about the law : but there

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

297

is sometimes a difficulty in its administration. A lanJtr
uttered by a priest in the pulpit, if it be unmistakably
directed against an individual, is no more privileged than
a slander uttered by a layman on the street. 1 he tri-
bunals of the Province of Quebec liave placed this matter
beyond the reach of doubt.

In a recent case, the judges of the Court of Appeal
were unanimous on this ooint, though they were not
agreed on the weight which ought to be given to the evi-
dence in support of the allegations made against the
priest. A blacksmith residing at St. Ephrem, township
of Upton, oi the name of Richer, brought an action against
the Rev. M. Renaud dit Blanchard, for slander uttered
in the pulpit. The case was tried at St. Hyacinthe
by Judge Sicotte, and was decided in favour ot the de-
fendant. Subsequently it was taken before the Court of
Revision at Montreal, where it was decided against the
priest, by whom, however, an appeal was taken.

The judgment of the Court of Revision was set aside,
and the decision rendered bj' the Superior Court in the
first instance sustained. The pretension was set up, that
as the alleged mjury committed by the priest consisted
ot words pronounced from the pulpit, he could not be
held responsible for their utterance. This doctrine Chief
Justice Dorion did not accept ; he knew of no person who
was above the law, or who could not be held responsible
for his statements.

Judge Ramsay, who decided in favour of the priest, upon
the evidence, admitted that there was a good cause ot ac-
tion, if the facts had been proved. The blacksmith com-
plained of two different species of slander, one uttered by
the priest in private conversations, the other in a sermon.
' The first question,' said Judge Ramsaj', ' is, whether the
cure designated Richer specifically or not, and if he did
designate him,* how far he was justified by the circum-

I

lllll'l

298

ROME rs CANADA.

Stances in doing so. The rule is, that the denunciation
must be general in its terms ; but it comports with reason
that there should be a limit to this. It would be extreme-
ly inconvenient to name or designate a person from the
pulpit, but it does not follow that the priest ought to con-
fine himself to evil in general, from fear that the offen-
der should be recognized by the denunciation.' This is
certainly contrary to the principle of the law of libel. A
person libelled is entitled to recover damages, though not
named, if the general description given of him is such as
to enable the public to fix upon him as the person intend-
ed to be struck at.

Judge Monk said : * As to the right of the Court to ac-
cord damages if malice had been shown, he had no hesi-
tation in saying that compensation would have been ac-
corded. Any v/ords uttered by a minister in the pulpit,
having in view the suppression of vice, were permissible.
The priest could make general remarks, and even allusions
more or less direct ; so long as he confined himself to his
proper functions of spiritual guide and preceptor, he was
not responsible. But if he went beyond what was per-
missible by his sacred mission, he became responsible be-
fore the tribunals for what he said.'

Judge Sanborn thought the allegations against the priest
were sufficiently proved. On the general principle, he
said : ' Without doubt a priest or a minister has great
latitude in denouncing vice or what he considers error,
culpable habits of life or conversation and evil compan-
ions. He is permitted to warn and put on their guard
his hearers, and particularly those of whom he has charge,
against whatever he believes to be contrary to good man-
ners and religious life ; but this must be done in general
terms. His sacred mission does not authorize him, any
more than any other man, individually to name and de-
nounce a person as unworthy of confidence, or to order

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

999

his hearers under severe pains not to frequent or visit his
place nf business.'

Judge Sanborn referred to the case of Darreau, in
which the cure, in a sermon, had held up the seigneur of
his parish to the contempt of his parishioners ; for which
offence he was suspended from his functions during a
period of five years, besides being fined and obliged to
make an apology. He was of opinion that the judgment
of the Court of Revision, which awarded a hundred dol-
lars damages and costs, ought to be confirmed.

Not only is the law plain : the directions given by the
bishop are directly contrary to the law. The antagonism
of the two authorities, of which this is an example, pre-
sents itself in numerous and increasing instances.

Formerly^the excommunication extended to the civil
judges who heard causes which the Church forbade them
to hear. A modification has been made by the pre-
sent Pope, and it was made on the ground that the bull
In Ccend Domini would have excluded Roman Catholics
from the judicial bench, while the interests of the Roman
Catholic Church required that they should sit there.*

Some defenders of the Church laud the Popes lor hav-
ing resorted to dissimulation and concealment on the
question of immunities, when their pretensions were re-
jected by the civil authority.!

Some Ultramontane journalists and pamphleteers give
the rule laid down in the first of the two joint letters of
the bishops on the subject the most rigid interpretation.
They describe as having come under the major excom-
munication all persons who, on a question of what they
are obliged to pay to the priest, have recourse to a civil
tribunal, instead of addressing themselves to the bishop.^

* S«e Lt Nouveau Monde, December 28, 1873.

t La Revue Thiologique.

t Abbs Pelletier in Le Ftanc-Parleur, Dec. 17, 187}.

300

ROME IN CANADA.

If

Others admit that these immunities are Umited by specific
exceptions, including : feudal causes ; personal property
given to ecclesiastics under the reserve of civil jurisdiction ;
causes arising out of the exercise of a civil employment
by the ecclesiastic. And they add that a clerk who has
cited a layman before a civil tribunal may himself in turn
be subjected to the same treatment by his adversarj',
and an ecclesiastic who succeeds to the position of a lay-
man who was already before a civil tribunal is excluded
from immunity. As part of the immunities claimed, these
bishops have given sufficient notice of their intention to
oppose any tax on the property of the Church. ' It is dif-
ficult to estimate what proportion of the immovable pro-
perty of the Province of Quebec the Roman Catholic
Church may not acquire. All experience shows that,
wherever the power of acquisition is almost or whollj''
unchecked, the property held in mortmain rapidly in-
creases.

In Italy every vestige of clerical immunities is being
swept away, that of freedom from liability to serve in
the army being the last to go.

Clerical immunities will spread over an infinitely wider
space than that which we have indicated, if for a while
the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics of the Province of Que-
bec obtain that absolute control of political power at
which they are aiming.

Let us see what would be the effect of admitting the
claim of immunity for the exercise of undue clerical in-
fluence in parliamentary elections. In their joint letter
of September, 1875, the bishops contsrd that, in certain
cases, * the priest and the bishop may in all justice, and
ought in all conscience, to raise the voice, to signalize
the danger, to declare with authority that to vote in such
a sense is a sin, that to perform such an act exposes to
the censures of the Church.'

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

301

When a priest rigorously carries out these instructions,
what chance of justice would the injured candidate have
in an appeal to one of the bishops under whose directions
the priest had acted ? The bishop would, in fact, be de-
ciding in his own cause ; for as the instigator of the act
of the priest he would be more responsible for it than
the man who believed himself bound to obey the order
of his superior. The only chance of justice, in such a
case, lies in an appeal to the civil tribunals.

There is manifestly a strong dislike Cii the part of per-
sons who have suffered under this form of injury to apply
to the civil tribunals for redress. The Archbishop of
Quebec was recentl}' called upon to adjudicate in a case
of this nature. M. Hector L. Langevin complained that,
in the heat of the Charlevoix election contest, in which
he was candidate, two priests, Revs. MM. Audet and
Saxe, had done him great injustice. The charge was
that they had written private letters which contained
• an odious calumny and an infamous libel.' These
private letters were publicly read ; and M. Saxe, when
asked by the Archbishop to explain, denied that he used
the words attributed to him.

The Archbishop then appHed to M. Tremblay, by
whom the letter had been read in public, to forward the
original for comparison ; and receiving for reply that
neither the original nor a copy had been kept, the Arch-
bishop declared himself incapable of deciding upon the
complaint, since it was impossible to ascertain the real
facts.

Of this decision we see no ground for complaining.
What is worth notice in connection with the case, is that
one of the candidates voluntarily makes the bishop the
judge of the alleged misconduct of the priest in an elec-
tion contest, and the other candidate, before venturing to
appeal to the civil tribunals, takes the case to Rome. In

1?

'ii '

303

ROME IN CANADA.

his letter to the Archbishop announcing his determina-
tion to appeal to Rome, M. Tremblay, who had also made
complaints of the conduct of a number of the cu^es, the
great majority of whom were opposed to him, states that
he had in vain demanded to be heard before a regular
ecclesiastical tribunal, where he could produce witnesses
and plead his cause ; but that after the lapse of a con-
siderable time he had not received any reply. In these
letters he asked permission of the Archbishop to bring
his complaints before the civil courts, if he could not have
the case heard before a regular ecclesiastical tribunal.

There is no reason in law why M. Tremblay should
not, in the first instance, have cited the priests of whose
conduct he complained before the civil tribunals. But he
probably feared that in doing so he would incur the major
excommunication ; that penalty being denounced against
those who have the temerity to seek to obtain redress for
an injury done by an ecclesiastic by citing the offender
before the civil tribunals. The references made to the
ecclesiastical authorities in these cases — for there are two
distinct complaints — are just what the Church of Rome
would naturally desire. In the first place, the Archbishop
is recognized as the proper judge to dispose of a case
which the complainant had the legal right to bring before
a civil tribunal ; and then the other party to the election
contest, who preferred a similar complaint, expressed a
desire to be allowed to carry it before a regularly consti-
tuted ecclesiastical tribunal, presumably in the nature of
the Officialite. There is an implied objection to the mode
in which the Archbishop proceeded. He certainly tried
to put himself in a position to test the accuracy of the
complaint made by M. Langevin ; but when he was in-
formed that the original letters had been destroyed and no
copies kept, he did not pursue the subject farther.

But this was not the point of M. Tremblay's complaint.

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

303

His complaint was, that to the three letters he had writ-
ten he had received no reply. The delay may have been
caused by a reference to Rome, and when M. Tremblay's
complaint reached there he may have been anticipated.
If candidates for parliamentary position who have suf-
fered from an undue exertion of clerical influence, and to
whom the civil tribunals are open, are deterred by the
menace of ecclesiastical censure from having recourse to
them, and are to be cowed into submitting their complaint
to the arbitrament of a bishop, an archbishop, or the
Congregation of the Propaganda at Rome, it is plain that
the rights of a large class of Her Majesty's subjects in
the Province of Quebec will be placed on a new and peril-
ous footing. It would not, we presume, require many re-
petitions of the demand made by M. Tremblay for the con-
stitution of a regular ecclesiastical tribunal before which
to take such cases to cause the wish of the applicants to
be gratified. Were such courts once established, the
tendency would be to draw to them an increasing num-
ber of cases, including mixed as well as such as are of a
purely ecclesiastical character.

The Chambly, the Charlevoix, and the Bonaventure
elections illustrate what sort of justice might be expected
in election causes from regularly constituted ecclesias-
tical tribunals. The parish priests were compelled to read
from the altar the pastoral letter in which the bishops au-
thorized the clergy to threaten with the censures of the
Church those who should be guilty of voting for the
wrong candidate. And the bishops would have to decide
whether the act they had autliorized, and in some cases
compelled reluctant priests to perform, called for their
censure or approbation !

M. Langevin admitted practically, and M. Tremblay in
terms, the claim of ecclesiastical immunities which
the bishops put forth in their joint circulars last year.

i!;l

IS

304

ROME IN CANADA.

The appeal which M. Tremblay makes tj Rome appears
to be somewhat in th'e nature of a. case of 'devolution,'
the Archbishop having neglected to act. The case is not
one that could have been appealed to Rome when Ca-
nada was under the French dominion.

Nor could the intimidation which has since been
proved to have been practised have occurred while
Canada was a French colony, and if it had occurred it
could not have come before any other than a civil tribu-
nal. The complaint of M. Tremblay is that he has been
the victim of slander, and if this be true, the same remedy
which the blacksmith of Saint Ephrem sought in a like
case was equally open to him. How the superior courts-
would deal with offenders such as M. Tremblay de-
scribes he could from the first have had little reason
to doubt. But if men, smarting under injuries of this
kind, are deterred from appealing to the protection of
th^ law, Roman canonists will begin to revive preten-
sions which were never admitted in France, and we shall
hear once more that contracts confirmed by an oath and
questions of usury are properly excepted from lay juris-
diction.

At last the discovery was made that the question of
undue influence exercised by a priest at an election may be
enquired into without citing the offender before a civil tri-
bunal. Thus a means was found by which an aggrieved
candidate could insist on his rights without fear of incur-
ring the major excommunication. It was then that M.
Tremblay brought his complaint before a civil tribunal.

The exercise of undue influence is liable to be visited
with a penalty of two hundred dollars ; and a priest found
guilty of the offence may be punished by the imposition
of that fine. If there were a public prosecutor, whose
duty it would be to take the initiative in such cases, he
could not escape. But ndther in the Charlevoix nor the

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

305

Bonaventure election did any punishment fall on the
offending priests.

Judge Routhier, before whom the trial took place, had
previously exposed his views on the main question when
he delivered his judgment in the case of Derouin against
Archambault, in which he laid it down ' that a layman
who asserts that he has been defamed by a cure, in a
sermon delivered from the pulpit, cannot sue for dam.ages
in civil tribunals for defamation ; preaching being a mat-
ter essentially ecclesiastical,' There, could, therefore,
hardly be a doubt what ground his judgment would pro-
ceed upon in the Charlevoix contest.*

But the Court of Appeal corrected the omission, and
overthrew the principle which Judge Routhier had set
up. ' These principles,' said Judge Mondelet, ' or ralaer
these pretensions,' speaking of Ultramontanism in the
bulk, ' are in contradiction to the jurisprudence of the
country, and should no longer be a subject of discussion.'
' Priests, bishops, and all ministers of religion,' he added,
* must be subject and obedient to the law and respect the
rights of citizens.' ' The pretensions of the euro appear
to me exorbitant ; but the judgment which dismisses the
action enunciates a doctrine subversive of all the rights of
the citizen, and is calculated to put the priest above the
law.' This priest had gone to the extent of telling the
congregation to drive one of the inhabitants of the parish
from his home. ' Here,' said Judge Johnson, ' is a man
of high position, who, on a public occasion, injures his
neighbour in what appears to me to be a gross and unne-
cessary manner ; and, instead of his situation shielding
him, it may fairly be said to add to the injury, for the

* Judge Routhier imflicted three fines wi'.h the alternative of imprisonment on jour-
nalists—and one journalist, M. Tarte, of Le Canadian, was imprisonea for thirty d.i" a
— for being too free in tlieir comments on the Charlevoix election contest while the
trial was in progress: No priest has yet suffered in that v.ay for his too great .license
ot speech.

3o6

ROME IN CANADA.

influence and authority of a parish priest are and ought
to be considerable.'

The success of the crusade of the Roman Catholic
clergy against civil liberty would blot out the individuality
of the citizens as completely as it would have disappeared
in the imaginary Republic of Plato, in the Utopia of
Moore, or in the Phalanstere of Fourier.

Many illustrations might be given to show how clerical
immunity from the jurisdiction of the civil courts would
work in actual practice. When an election contest was
going on in Soulanges, in the summer of 1875, M. Doutre
wrote to an elector of the county to protest against the
Roman Catholics bandmg themselves together and taking
the Syllabus for their programme. To do so, he thought
would create a very serious public danger. * The Syllabus,'
he reminded his correspondent, ' proscribes every form of
worship except Catholicism, and decrees that physical force
may be resorted to to arrive at an uniformity of worship.'

What happened ? The Bishop of Montreal wrote a
letter to M. Doutre's correspondent, which obtained im-
mediate publicity, and in which he characterized M.
Doutre's letter as ' blasphemy ' against the Syllabus, and
intimated that the writer merited the censure of the
Church, and might expect to meet the frown of the
Sovereign Judge when he is taken from this world.

Under such encouragement as this, there is no con-
ceivable degree of license which the parish priests would
not think themselves justified in using. If in their denun-
ciations they uttered serious and damaging libels against
M. Doutre, and his only remedy lay in an appeal to an
ecclesiastical tribunal, what measure of justice could he
expect to obtain from the bishop's court ?

But is the priest to be divested of his rights as a citi-
zen ? Is he not, as a citizen, and outside of the Church,
to be allowed to utter a word on politics ? No one, so

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

ao7

far as our observation goes, has expressed a desire to de*
tract from the rights of a priest in his character of a citi-
zen. The objection is to his using the influence ol his
sacred office and the terrors of spiritual censures for the
purpose of deciding a political election in favour of a
particular candidate or of a particular party.

The bishops, in one of their joint letters of 1875, say :
• There are political questions in which the clergy can and
ought to interfere in the name of religion.' They also
say: ' It belongs to the Church,' presumably meaning
thereby the bishops, * to give its ministers such instruc*
tions as it may think suitable.' The questions in which
they may interfere are described to be all those which
have any bearing on faith or morals. And candidates
may be judged on grounds wholly separate from their ex-
pressed opinions. A candidate may be condemned by
his antecedents, which no doubt fairly make an element
in the estimation of character. But, under this rule, a
man might be held responsible tor opinions which he had
long since discarded. He may be judged by the ante-
cedents of the leaders of the party to which he is attach-
ed ; by the opinions of its principal members ; by those of
the press which speaks on its behalf. Here a wide and
dangerous latitude is given to the clergy, in their dealing
with candidates lor political position. The practical ef-
fect is to treat all changes of political opinion as in-
sincere, and all supposed political offences as unworthy
of moral amnesty.

An army of over a thousand priests now acting under
the inspiration of these instructions, and having it in
their power to make and unmake the political fortunes of
the majority of the candidates in the Province of Quebec,
might, if the immunity contended for were granted, in-
flict upon individuals serious injuries, for which there

would practically be no remedy.
20

3o«

ROME IN CANADA.

In Ontario, the question of ecclesiastical immunities is
permitted to lie dormant. The Ultramontanes of Que-
bec, however, tell us that that Province is subject to the
canon law of Rome, and point to the renewal of the
major excommunication by the present Pope as proof
that this penalty hangs over the head of any Roman
Catholic who does not respect these immunities. And
this, though it is true that the United States, by special
authority of the Pope, were, in 1837, exempted from the
penalty of excommunication for the refusal of clerical
immunities.*

The Supreme Court, in the Charlevoix election case,
the judgment being delivered by Mr. Justice Taschereau,
met the claim of clerical immunity which had been set
up by saying that ' the tribunal which is to take cogni-
zance of the contestation of an election is indicated by
law.' As for the ecclesiastical tribunal, he added, ' for
me it is intangible, non-existent in this country, being in-
capable of existing effectively therein but by the joint ac-
tion of the episcopacy and of the civil power, or by the
mutual consent of the parties interested, and in the lat-
er case it would be only in the form of a conventional
arbitration, which would be binding on no one but the
parties themselves. If this tribunal exists, I am not
aware that it has any code of law or procedure ; it
would have no power to summon the parties and the
witnesses, nor to execute its judgments. And if it exist-
ed, it would be very singular to see the Jew seeking at the
hands of a Catholic bishop the justice he caii claim from
the civil tribunals, and submitting to corporeal punish-
ment adjudged by that tribunal ; and the same might be
said of any other individual belonging to a different reli-
gion.' What was aimed at in the Charlevoix contestation
was that the election should be declared void on account

♦ Le Franc-ParUur, Jan. 7, 1876.

1

THE CLAIM OF CLERICAL IMMUNITY.

309

of the exertion of undue clerical influence ; and no ec-
clesiastical tribunal could either have annulled or con-
firmed the election. After forty years' practice at the bar
of Quebec, and sitting as a judge, Mr. Justice Taschercau
said he had now heard for the first time what he signal-
ized as the ' extraordinary opinion ' that a CathoKc
priest, speaking from the pulpit, may defame whomsoc\er
he pleases, and then shelter himself from responsibility
by pleading immunity. ' Such,' said the judge sententi-
ously, ' is not the law ; such it was not up to the time of
the judgment (Routhier's) in question. The most ancient
as well as the most modern authors repudiate this doc-
trine.' * As for me,' he added, 'my oath of office binds
me to judge all matters which are brought before me ac-
cording to law and the best of my knowledge. The law
expressly forbids all undue influence, from whatever
source it may arise, and without any distinction. I must
carry out this law fully and entirely conformably to the
Act.'*

Therefore the bishops and their organs in the press de-
mand the alteration of the law ; they seek to import into
it that principle of clerical immunity which, in the words
of Mr. Justice Taschereau, 'the most ancient as well as
the most modern authors repudiate.' The wishes of the
bishops are equal to a command to the faithful ; and it
necessary this command can be reinforced by a direction
from a Roman Congregation todoor nottodo a particular
thing.

* Mr. Justice Taschereau is brother of the Archbishop of Quebec, the author o
Joint Letter.

i ?^l

310

ROME IN CANADA.

XVI.

THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX AND
THE INQUISITION.

More than half a century ago, the parish priest of
Longueuil foretold, in a voice of solemn warning, the ca-
lamities that would fall upon Lower Canada if the Roman
canon law were substituted in that Province for the ec-
clesiastical law of France ; and much of \. hat he said
has been realized to the letter. 'You would then,' he
says, ' be obliged to recognize the authority of the Inqui-
sition, and the power of the Pope to establish a similar in-
stitution in this country ; you would recognize the author-
ity of the Congregation of the Index, and when that took
place multitudes would be excommunicated for having read
without permission prohibited books I You would admit
the tamous bull Iti Ccend Domini, though it has ceased to
be published at Rome since the advent of Clement XIV.
to the Pontificate ! You would admit the bull Unam
Sanctum of Boniface VIII., which asserts the spiritual
and temporal sovereignty of the Popes over the empires
and kingdoms of the earth. You would admit without
exception all the decrees of the Council of Trent which
have reference to ecclesiastical discipline, though many
of them were never received in France, because they were
in opposition to the royal authority and the laws and
usages of the kingdom.'

The members of the Institut-Canadien, against whom
Bishop Bourget launched a general excommunication, have
realized, in their own persons, the truth of that part of

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

3"

the prediction which refers to prohibited books. Owing
to a defect of form, the excommunication was not legally
valid ; but it was not, on that account, without effect on
/ the fortunes of the institution against which it was di-
rected. The fear of remaining under a condemnation
which presented frightful terrors to the Roman Catholic
mind caused numbers to quit their connection with the
Institute. The effect was to cut off a large part of its
revenue, impair its energies, and lessen its influence. It
is now struggling under a load of debt, for the cancelling
of which no efficient means has yet been provided. It
has been stated, on authority which there is no reason
to dispute,* that not a single Catholic member of Parlia-
ment was, in April, 1876, a member of the Institute.

Bishop Bourget found no difficulty, till the question
came before the tribunals, in substituting the Roman for
the Quebec ritual in the diocese of Montreal ; but his at-
tempt to replace the ecclesiastical law of France by the
canon law of Rome in the Province of Quebec has not
been successful.

After a book has been put in the Index, ' from that
moment no one, not even a bishop, is allowed to read it
without special permission, which no one but the Pope
can give.'t

There have been Catholic authors who could console
themselves under the weight of this censure. * If,' said
Pascal, ' my letters are condemned at Rome, what I con-
demn is condemned in Heaven.' The President of the
Institut-Canadien, in his address delivered, in 1868, in
favour of tolerance, would, if interrogated, no doubt say
the same thing. No distinction is made between Protes-
tants and Catholics : the former have no more right than

* M. Guar Dunn.

t Bishop Bourget. Lettrt Pastorale, 30 Avril, 1838.

'l

312

ROME TN CANADA.

the latter to have in their possession a condemned
book.*

Let us take a look into the Holy Office at Rome, and
see the machinery by which books are condemned. The
Congregation of the Holy Office is composed of several
cardinals, a prelate of the Roman Court, called an Asses-
sor or Reporter, a Dominican Brother, who is the Com-
missaire-ne, an unlimited number of doctors of canon law
called Consulters, and severa' learned theologians, to whom
the name ot ^Ma/t/!^5 is given. All the members of the
Holy Office are appointed by the Pope.

When a book is denounced to the Holy Office, one of
the Consulters is charged to examine it. If the reputa-
tion of the author is great, the work is examined by a
second censor, to whom the name oi the first is unknown,
but the result of whose examination is communicated to
him. Naturally, these doctors, likeother men, sometimes
differ as to what is good or bad, moral or immoral, dan-
gerous or harmless ; and then the fate of the work is com-
mitted to the arbitrament of a third censor, from whom
the names of the previous two are concealed. The report
being made, is presented to the Consulters, who in the
preparatory Congregations express their opinions on the
work, of which their knowledge is wholly derived from
the statement before them. Some member of the con-
gregation goes through the mockery of defending the
work; but it is not probable that any author was ever
benefited by such a defence. If the author were entitled
to defend his work before the Congregation, he would
scarcely choose for that office a member of the society
whose special business it is to put books under the ban oi
the Index.

* Encore ai, k TEvfichi on le bornalt it interdire aux Catholiquet leuls la lectur*
des livres de la bibliothiique de I'lnatitut Canadien, mail on reclami jurisdiction
tneme aur la conacienc* de* Proteitants :—Jugement rendu par son Honntur UJugt
Uondeltt in re Guibord, Lundi le a Mai, 1870,

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION. 313

When judgment has been pronounced, it requires the
approbation of the Pope before it is put into execution.
To obtain the assent of the Pope, the prelate called the
Assessor acquaints his Holiness with all the proceedings
that have taken place. Frequently the Pope himself pre-
sides at the Congregation of the Holy Office, andlistensto
what the cardinals have to say on any book brought be-
fore them. But it is obvious that the real fate of the
book is in the hands of the censor or censors by whom
it is examined.

Considering the enormous multiplication of books
throughout the world, and the proportion of them likely
to be denounced to the Holy Office, that institution has
plenty of work on its hands. When it was found neces-
sary to divide the labour, to which the Holy Office was
unequal, the 'Sacred Congregation of the Index ' was
created ; its function is confined exclusively to the exam-
ination of suspected literature. Its organization and pro-
cedure are nearly the same as those of the Holy Office. f

The Annuaire of the Institut-Canadien for 1868 fell
under the censure of the Congregation of the Index. By
this decretum the faithful were forbidden to be members
oi the Institute while it taught what were condennied as
pernicious doctrines, or to publish, read, or possess the
Annuaire. Bishop Bourget, in a pastoral letter dated at
Rome, in the August of 1869, gave warning that if any
person still persisted in keeping in his possession the
condemned book, or continued his connection with the
Institute, he would be deprived of the sacraments, even in
the article oi death.

The Institute staggered under this blow, and by a formal
resolution declared its unconditional submission to the
decree of the Congregation of the Index; but it denied
the accuracy of the alleged lac s on which its condemna-

t Bishop Bourget. Ltttrt Pastorale, 30 Avnl, 1838.

314

ROME IN CANADA.

tion had been based. It declared that its objects were
purel> literary and scientific ; that there was no doctrinal
teaching within its walls, and that it carefully excluded
the teaching of pernicious doctrines therein.

The Institute gained nothing by this act of partial sub-
mission, and it sacrificed logic to a desire to bring about
an accommodation. If the alleged facts on which it was
condemned were not true, the Institute yielded too much
by a submissive acceptance of the decree. Bishop Bourget
is of too unyielding a temper to accept, in such a case,
anything less than the most absolute submission. It was
he who had first opened fire upon the Institute ; it was
he who had secured its condemnation, and the condem-
nation of the Annnaire, at Rome; and he was not now
likely to be satisfied with a half victory, which would
have left upon him the stigma of having misrepresented
the facts. He had been storming the fortress of the Insti-
tute during a period of twelve years, and he would accept
nothing less than an unconditional capitulation.

In the spring of 1857, an attempt had been made tocou-
quer the Institute by lorce of a cabal among its own mem-
bers. A minority of the members had proposed to amuse
themselves and gladden the heart of the bishop by a
literary auto da f« ; but the majority, having less respect
for the decrees of the Inquisition and a greater regard for
literature, objected. At the same time, they resolved :
' That the Institute has always been, and is, alone compe-
tent to judge of the morality of its library, the adminis-
tration of which it is capable of conducting without the
intervention of foreign influences.' The bishop pronounced
this to be grave error, and referred to a decree of the
Council of Trent to prove that he was the proper judge of
the moral character of the books, and that any one who
should read or keep in his possession heretical books
would incur the penalty of excommunication. The Church

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

3X

having, as the bishop assumed, pronounced an excom-
munication, he was saved the trouble of performing that
act.

This appeal to a decree of the Council of Trent was an
attempt *o set aside the Galiican liberties and the civil
law in favour of Rome. • It is,' said the Lords of the Privy
Council in the Guibord case, which arose out of the ex-
communication of the Institute, ' a matter almost of
common knowledge, certainly of historical and legal fact,
that the decrees of this Council, both those that relate to
discipline and to faith, were never admitted in France to
have effect propria vigore, though a great portion of them
have been incorporated into French Ordinances. In the
second place, France has never acknowledged nor re-
ceived, but has expressly repudiated, the decrees ot the
Congregation of the Index.' And agam : ' No evidence
has been produced beiore their Lordships to establish the
very grave proposition that Her Majesty's Roman Catholic
subjects in Lower Canada have consented since the
cession to be bound by such a rule as it is now sought to
enforce, which, in truth, involves the recognition of the
authority of the Inquisition, an authority never admitted
but always repudiated by the old law of France. It
is not, therefore, necessary to enquire whether, since
the passing of the 13 Geo. III., c. 83, which incorporates
(s. 5) the ist of Elizabeth, the Roman Catholic subjects of
the Queen could not legally consent to be bound by such
a rule.'

This is the judgment of the highest judicial authority in
the British Empire. A different opinion had, however,
been expressed by Judge Mondelet in one of the long
series of trials to which this case gave rise. * The Council
of Trent,' he said, ' is received in Canada. The Church,
though universal, has not been able to get the authority
of this Council admitted either in France or the United

3x6

ROME IN CANADA.

States.' That it is not admitted in Canada is now settled
beyond the possibility of recall.

There is no reason to conclude, however, that this
Council will cease to be appealed to and quoted as an
unerring guide by the New School. Their argument is
that the secular power cannot reject the universal laws of
the Church which relate to matters within her cognizance ;
that beyond question the decree Tametsi has been pub-
lished either in France or in Canada, as may be seen by
reference to the Quebec ritual, page 342.* But even if
the publication oi this decree were of such a character as
to give it the force of law, it would not follow that all the
decrees of the Council of Trent are in torce in Quebec.
The Court of Rome decided, in a rescript addressed to
Bishop Plessis, that this particular decree is in force in all
that part of British North America which was previously
possessed by the Crown of France : in the two Canadas,
the North-West Territory, Nova Scotia, and Newfound-
land. The neighbourhood of Lake Champlain was
excepted, on the ground that previous to the conquest of
Canada the possession of this territory was continually
disputed between the English and the French, and that
apparently the decree had not been published there. f
From this it is evident that it was not pretended, even at
Rome, that all the decrees of the Council of Trent were in
force in Canada.

There is one legal decision which seems to recognize
the decree Tametsi as being in force in the Province of
Quebec. M. Vaillancourt, by means of false representa-
tions, induced the cure, not of his own parish, but of the
parish of Three Rivers, to perform the marriage ceremony
between himself and his deceased wife's sister Judge
Polette declared this marriage null : because it had been

* Abbe Maguire, Recutil de Notes Diverses,
t Abb6 Maguire.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

317

contracted before another priest than that ot the parish in
which the parties Hved, and because it was within the
prohibited degrees. The decision was made in accordance
with the ancient law, the Code not having then been in
force.

Before pronouncing on the validity of this marriage,
the court sent the case before the ecclesiastical authority
to have the canonical validity of the marriage decided.
The Bishop of Three Rivers pronounced the marriage
null for the reasons stated. The bishop's decree was
reported in the civil court, March 23rd, 1866, when Judge
Polette said : ' Seeing that the said sentence of the said
bishop declares the said marriage radically null, this court
declares and adjudges that the marriage contracted be-
tween the plaintiff and the defendant is null and without
civil effect.'^

The reference of the case to the bishop to have the
canonical validity of the marriage pronounced upon was
not without precedent, though there seems to have been
only one other similar reference to which it is possible to
point. Judge Polette was thought by some to have taken
a step that tended towards the revival of the ancient
Officialite ; but no such result followed. Under the Code
of Procedure, it would appear that this reference cannot
be repeated, for by the 28th article the Superior Court
has cognizance, in the first instance, of all actions which
are not within the exclusive jurisdiction ot the Circuit
Court or the Court of Admiralty ; though the question
is not beyond doubt.

It is certain that in most of those parts of British
America in which the Court of Rome holds that the de-
cree Tametsi is in force, questions of the validity ot
marriage are decided entiiely by the civil laws, and these
laws are not everywhere uniform.
{ CoHsidiratioM sur Us Loit Civilts du Mariage, par Disiri Girouard, B.C.L.,avoeat,

z8

ROME IN CANADA.

Even by the admission of the Court of Rome, no other
part of the Council of Trent than the decree Tametsi was
ever alleged to be in force in Canada ; and the Bishop of
Montreal was not authorized to appeal to that Council
as a means of proving that to him belonged the right
of deciding the morality of the books belonging to the
Institute.

The bishop refused to accept the submission of the Insti-
tute, because that submission was contained in the report
of a committee unanimously adopted, in which was a re-
solution 'establishing the principle of religious toleration,
which,' he is candid enough to admit, ' was the principal
cause of the condemnation of the Institute.' This con-
fession is as important as it is startling. Let it be well
understood that Rome makes the teaching of the dogma
of intolerance in Canada obligatory, and treats as a crime
adhesion to the opposite principle.

Let us turn to the condemned Annuaire and trace the
language which the Congregation of the Index forbids us
all, Protestants as well as Catholics, to read. On the
17th of December, 1868, the Hon. L. A. Dessaulles, Pre-
sident of the Institute, in a speech afterwards printed in
the Annuaire, said : ' We form a society of students, and
this society is purely laical. Is an association of lay-
men, not under direct religious control, permissible, speak-
ing from a Catholic point of view ? Is an association of
laymen belonging to various rr"i;.rious denominations per-
missible from a Catholic point of view ? What evil is
there, in a country of mixed religious opinions, in men of
mature mind belonging to different Christian sects giving
one another the kiss of peace on the field of science?
What ! Is it not permissible, when Protestants and Catho-
lics are placed side by side in a country, in a city, for
them to pursue together their career of intellectual
progress ! There are certain men who are never quiet

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

319

except when they have made enemies both in the domain
of conscience and of intelligence. Where do these men
get their evangelical notions ? Where then are prudence
and simple good sense ? There are these who, themselves
a minority in the State, cannot endure persons of oppo-
site opinions, and in whose mouth the word ostracism is
always to be found. But we have no difficulty in endur-
ing you, with all your perversity of mmd and of heart.
Imitate therefore a good example, instead ot setting a bad
one. We theretore form a literary society of laymen.
Our object is progress ; work our means ; tolerance our
connecting tie. We have for all the respect which men
of sincerity never withhold. There are hypocrites who see
evil everywhere, and who fear it because they are ac-
quainted with it.

• What is tolerance ? It is reciprocal indulgence, sym-
pathy. Christian charity. It is mutual good will : the sen-
timent which men of good will ought to entertain for one
another. The noble words : " Peace on earth, good will
towards men," is at once a precept of charity and the ex-
pression of a desire that they may enjoy peace of mind.
Tolerance is the practical application of the greatest of
all principles, moral, religious, and social : " Do unto
others as you would that they should do unto you." Tol-
erance is therefore fraternity, the spirit of religion well
understood. Charity is the first of Christian virtues, tol-
erance is the second. Tolerance is a respect for the rights
of others ; it is indulgence for their error or their fault ;
it is Christ saying to the accusers of the woman taken in
adultery : " Let him that is without sin among you cast the
first stone at her." Tolerance is at bottom humility; the
idea that others are not worthless ; that others are as
good as ourselves. It is also justice, the idea that others
have rights which it is not permissible for us to violate.
But intolerance is pride ; it is the idea that we are better

320

ROME IN CANADA.

than others ; it is egotism, the idea that we owe others
nothing , it is injustice, the idea that we are not bound to
respect the rights of God's creatures. Tolerance is always
a virtue, because it is the expression of goodness ; intol-
erance is almost always cruel and criminal, because it is
the destruction of those sentiments of which religion r- -
• : the r)fesence in the heart of man.'

Th>?se c^i the sentiments the expression of which the
Bishop of Montreal, with an abundance of frankness, ad-
mits formed the principal cause of the Institut-Canadien
being condemned. Their reproduction in the Annuairt
was the cause of that little publication of thirty pages
being pro'i oi.e'i by the Congregation of the Index ; and
their transfer i j h .; present work would at Rome be a
reason why no one. Proteiiirmt or Catholic, should be al-
lowed to rec .3, possess ; '• ~etain it, if the question were
brought before tit Hciy ^ f >.r.

Before the decision had ucCii given at Rome against
the Institute, its members had appealed to the judgment
of the Sacred Congregation to decide this question : ' Can
a Catholic, without rendering himself liable to ecclesias-
tical censures, belong to a literary association, some of
the members of which are Protestants, and which pos-
sesses books condemned by the Index, but which are
neither obscene nor immoral ? ' No answer to this appeal
was made ; and the Institute was condemned on a
ground entirely different from that raised in the appeal :
that it had passed a resolution establishing the principle
of religious toleration. But this ground of condemnation,
as the Lords of the Privy Council remark, ' was entirely
new, does not appear in any former document, and
further, it would seem could not have been known by
Guibord.' The Institute was not heard on this point, it
was condemned in its absence, some one member of the
Congregation presumably going through the usual mockery

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION

321

of defending \\\^ Annuaire against the report which would,
in the ordinary course of proceeding, be made against it.
The Institute appears not even to have known, before it
received the decision, that it had been accused of the
crime of detesting intolerance.

Joseph Guibord, a printer by trade, a Roman Catholic
by baptism and education, was a member ot the Institute
at the time when it was condemned at Rome, and when
t)ic Bishop of Montreal gave warning that any person
afterwards continuing to remain a member of that body,
or to keep the Annuaire in ^is possession, would be de-
prived of the sacraments, even in the article of death.
Some years before his death Guibord, being dangerously
ill, received extreme unction from a priest by whom he
was attended, but he refused to purchase his right to
receive the Communion at the price of relinquishing his
connection with the Institute.

When Guibord died, the cure, who appears then to
have known for the first time the position which the
bishop had taken with regard to the members of the In-
stitute, refused to give him ecclesiastical burial, and de-
cided that the deceased could only be buried in that part
of the cemetery set apart for persons who are not within
the pale of the Church at the time of their death. The
widow of the deceased offered to accept burial in the con-
secrated part of the cemetery without religious services ;
and the rejection of the offer led to a long series of legal
proceedings, which ended in a judgment of the Privy
Council granting precisely what the widow had at first
been willing to accept.

The decision turned chiefly upon the construction ot
the Quebec ritual on the subject of burial. The ritual
gives a catalogue of persons to whom ecclesiastical
sepulchre is to be denied. Under the head of ' Public
Sinners ' five different classes are named, and to this

M

ROME JN CANADA,

enumeration the abbreviated words ♦ etc' are added. But
the Privy Council did not feel justified in sanctioning
an arbitrary enlargement of the categories in the ritual
in such a way as ' would not have been deemed to be
within the authority ol the law of the Gallican Church
as it existed in Canada before the cession; and,' they
added, * in their opinion, it is not established that there
has been such an alteration in the status or law of that
Church, founded on the consent of its members, as
would warrant such an interpretation of the ritual, and
that the true and just conclusion of law on this point is,
that the fact of being a member of this Institute does not
bring a man within the category of a public sinner, to
whom Christian burial can be legally refused.' The de-
cree pointed out the danger which a discretionary enlarge-
ment of the categories named in the ritual under the
head of public sinners would cause : ' For instance, the
et cetera might be, according to the supposed exigency of
the particular case, expanded so as to include within its
band any person being of habits ofintimacy or conversing
with a member of a literary society containing a prohibit-
ed book; any person visiting a friend who possessed
such a book ; any person sending his son to a school in
the library of which there was such a book ; going to a
shop where such books were sold ; and many other in-
stances might be added. Moreover, the Index, which al-
ready forbids Grotius, Pascal, Pothier, Thuanus, and
Sismondi, might be made to include all the writings of
jurists and all legal reports of judgments supposed to be
hostile to the Church of Rome ; and the Roman Catholic
lawyer might find it difficult to pursue the studies of his
profession.'

If the time should ever come when our judges will
have to recognize the legality of the substitution of the
Roman for the Quebec ritual, made by Bishop Bourget

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

323

in the diocese of Montreal, judicial decisions of very
startling import may have to be given. Will the Roman
ritual, in that diocese, come in time to have the binding
force of law upon all who have, by implication, tacitly
consented to be placed under it ?

During the Guibord trial Judge Mondelet asked the
very pertinent question : • How has the Roman ritual
been introduced into this country ? By what authority
are the decrees ol the Index in force in Canada?' M.
Jette replied, with 'characteristic nonchalance, that the
Roman ritual was the code ot ecclesiastical discipline,,
and that the Bishop of Montreal had made the change.t
The Privy Council, which decided both these points
against the bishop, took the Quebec ritual for authority,
and made no reference whatever to that of Rome. Judge
Mondelet points out the difference between the Roman
and the Quebec ritual on the question of burial. The
Roman ritual omits the rules which ought to be observed
with regard to 'criminals who are condemned to death,
and executed in accordance with a judicial condemnation,
if they die penitent.' The ritual of Quebec allows eccle-
siastical sepulchre to be given to them, ' but without
ceremony, the cure or vicar saying the prayers in a low
voice and not having on his surplice.'

Judge Mondelet, still anxious to penetrate the motive
for the substitution of one ritual for the other, asked

ii

I

11

le
t

f It is surprising that neither Judge Mondelet nor M. Cassidy knew at what time
nor in what way the change of ritucl had been made. The Judge had had no special
opportunity for learning ; but the counsel for the Church ought to have been instructed
on the point by his clients. The Roman ritual is said to have been expressly recog-
nized by the first Provincial Council of Quebec, held in 1851 ; (Supplement aux Reflex-
ions d'une Catholique k I'occasion de I'affaire Guibord, 7871,) but recognition, even
supposing this to be the exact term that should ha^'e been used, is not adoption. ' The
curi ought not to be unable to distinguish whom the common law excludes from the
right of sipulchre eccl^siastique,' (Acta i, Cone. Quebec ; Decretum VI.,de Rituali)
and in the list enumerated are heretics, those who are notoriously under the major
excommunication, and public sinners who have given no signs of penitence. But thia.
does not identify a public sinner with more certainty than the ritual of Quebec.
21

V

334

ROME IN CANADA.

whether the omission in the Roman ritual of what is
contained in that of Quebec induced the Bishop of Mont-
real to introduce into that diocese a number ol changes,
among others the chanting at the funeral of the ' infamous
Marie Crispin, who, with her paramour, expiated on
the scaffold the horrible murder which they had com-
mitted, a solemn service which many honest and respect-
able persons fail to obtain.'

The priest who attended these criminals on the scaf-
fold assured them, M. Dessaulles informs us, that the fall
of the drop would open to them the gates of heaven. Ihe
popular comment upon this comforting assurance which
the priest gave to the condemned assassins was that the
* best means to enable a person to die with public honours
was to commit assassination.' The assassins were assured
of a direct convoy to heaven, but for a man who reads
Montesquieu, or Grotius, or Sismondi, all hopeof salvation
is for ever shut out.

The attempt to substitute the Roman for the Quebec
ritual affords another proof of the desire of the New
School to leave behind it the old landmarks. Mgr. de
Saint Vallier, Bishop of Quebec, in an address to the
cures, missionaries, and other priests of the diocese, Oct.
8th, 1700, said ; 'In order that no person should have
cause to pretend ignorance of our intentions we prohibit
the use of every other ritual' than that of Quebec.

The change of the ritual, if valid, the attempt to change
it if the attempt be without legal effect, shows the growth
of a Romeward disposition, and is one indication of the
distance travelled in that direction since the days of
Mgr. de St. Vallier.

Against the decree of the Privy Council ordering the
burial of Guibord in the consecrated part of the cemetery,
the Bishop of Montreal, by means of inflammatory pastor-
als, raised a fanatical opposition which threatened a breach

mge

wth

the

of

the

tor-
ich

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION. 325

of the peace. Once the remains of Guibord, and the cor-
tege by which they were attended, were driven back by
the menaces of an infuriated mob ; and finally, after days
and weeks of delay, the decree of the highest court in the
empire was only carried into effect under the protection of
a strong guard ot militia. At the last moment, the bishop
recoiled from the precipice to which temerity had carried
him ; yielding only when he became convinced that the
arm of the civil power was prepared to carry into effect
the judicial decree which had excited his wrathful oppo-
sition.

But the resort to ruse and subterfuge was still possible ;
the bishop set his invention to work to find out some
plan by which the decree of the Privy Council could
be practically nullified. Guibord was to be buried in
consecrated ground: it struck the bishop, as a happy
thought, to interdict and separate it from the rest of that
part of the cemetery set apart to receive the bodies of
persons having a right to ecclesiastical burial, and thus
make the final legal decision in the case of no practical
€fiect. This threat was carried into effect, and so far
with seeming impunity ; but the trick of evasion caused a
heavy loss of moral strength, of which the bishop seemed
to be unconscious, but which has its effect on the public
mind. What he gained was only in appearance ; what
he lost was real, enduring, and irrecoverable.

The act by which the Bishop of Montreal interdicted
the grave of Guibord necessarily extended the censure to
the body of his innocent wife, over whose coffin that of
the husband was superimposed. She had died in the
faith, and raceived ecclesiastical burial.

According to the Quebec ritual. Article X., ecclesiastical
censure necessarily supposes a sin of considerable gravity.
One guilty of venal sin cannot, according to the ritual,
be punished with a censure greater than the excomniuni-

3*6

ROME IN CANADA.

I

r
li

!

cation minor. Does the fact of belonging to a literary
society which has prohibited books in its library constitute
a sin of considerable gravity? Judge Mondelet answers
this question by saying : ' No sensible man will pretend
that to disobey the bishop, especially when he is in the
wrong, is a sin of considerable gravity: it is not even a
venal sin.'

The appel comme d'abns could, in France, be invoked
against an excommunication pronounced for improper or
inadequate cause. When the Official of Toulouse
had excommunicated the Seneschal of Toulouse, on ac-
count of his refusal to give up a prisoner to him, the
Official was condemned to revoke the excommunication.
The same result would follow if the excommunication
were iulminated against the sovereign, the nation, or
public officers for acts done in discharge of their duty.

It was in these words that the bishop cut off the grave
of Guibord from the rest of the cemetery : * We declare
by these presents, in order that no person may be able
to pretend to be ignorant thereof, that that part of the
cemetery in which the body of the late Joseph Guibord
may be buried, if ever it be, shall be in fact and remain
ipso facto interdicted and separated from the rest of the
cemetery.'* And recalling the fact, after the burial, he
said :t " We have truly declared, in virtue of the divine
power which we exercise in the name ol the pastors, that
the place in which the body of this rebel child of the
Church has been deposited is in fact separated from the
rest of the consecrated cemetery, to become henceforth
nothing but a profane place.'

Bishop Bourget had a free and easy way of doing
things. According to the Dictionnaire de Trevoux, which
Abbe McGuire says ought to be in the library of every

♦ L*ttre Pastoral*, S Sept., 1875.
i Lettre Pastorale, 16 Nov., 1873.

THE INDEX /ND THE INQUISITION.

337

bord
ain
the
he
vine
that
the
the

cure in the Province of Quebec, an 'interdict doit Stre pro-
nonce avec les memes formalitez que V excommunication *
(the interdict ought to be pronounced with the same
lormaUties as the excommunication). Excommunication,
the same author says, ought to be preceded by public
notice, three times repeated, at intervals of two days each;
and this, whether it be the major excommunication, which
inflicts the penalty of separation from the communion of
the faithful, or the minor excommunication, which
merely implies a denial of the sacraments. In the
alleged excommunication of Guibord, no public notice
was given. The old formalities of pronouncing the
excommunication, with maledictions and anathemas,
amidst the ringing of bells and the trampling out of
lighted candles, is one that might, one would think, be
very well dispensed with. Sometin s excommunication
was extended to the lower forms of animal life ;| but an
insect or a rat could not be excommunicated without the
formality of assigning it an advocate for its defence being
gone through. Guibord wa allowed no such privilege.
When a kingdom was placed under interdict for the
assumed fault of the sovereign, the innocent suffered with
the gui'ty. But who was the guilty party in this case ?
Who ordered the burial of Guibord to take place in the
consecrated part of the cemetery of Cote des Neiges ?
The Privy Council. It is against their act that the eccle-
siastical censure is directed. This act of the bishop bears
an unpleasant analogy to those ecclesiastical censures on
the decisions of lay judges against which the Galilean
liberties guarded the rights of the French people when
Canada was a colony of France.

r:(

rery

t II a y eu des 6veques qui ont prononc6 des excommunication contre des chenillei
et autres insectes, aprds une procedure j uridique, et aprSs avoir donne k ces animaux
un avocat et un procureur pour se ddfendre. Fevet raporte divers exemples det
pareilles excommunications, ou contre des rats qui infectoient les pays, ou centres les
autres animaux.— Trivoux.

328

ROME IN CANADA.

The inflammatory pastorals found a ready echo in the
Ultramontane journals, when the question was gravely
asked whether Guibord should be allowed to be buried,
or whether — such was the implied alternative — violence
should be used to prevent it; and a torrent of contempt
was poured oa the decree of the Privy Council, in wretched
rhymes, the work of ignorant fanaticism, or of dis-
guised cunning bringing itself down to the intellectual
level of the mob by whom the burial had once been for-
cibly prevented.

The spot in which Guibord was buried had been
consecrated only as the result of a fortuitous cir-
cumstance. Even the part of the cemetery in which
the faithful are buried is not consecrated in bulk : at
each burial a benediction is pronounced upon the grave.*

If the fiat of a bishop can cut off a grave from that part
of the cemetery in which the highest court in the realm
directs a burial to tak3 place, and if it can do so before
the law is complied with, it is plain that he can in
effect exercise the power of annulling judicial decisions.
The pretended act of separation, accompanied with the
interdict, in this case preceded the burial. Is then a
Roman Catholic bishop enabled at will to prevent the
execution of the judgments of the civil tribunals ? For it
is certain that he aims at, and claims to have accomplished,
nothing less. The exercise of such a power in France
would have been followed by the appel conime d'abits.

When the mob had been excited to oppose the burial
by violence, and it had become evident that this first
success against the cause of order would noL be allowed

♦ Temoignagc de Messire Victor Rousselot in the Guibord trial. There is no doubt
about the correctness of this statement ; and yet Bishop Bourget, while pretending to
use his influence to appease the fury of the mob, after its violence had prevented the
burial of the remains of Guibord, in pursuance of the decree of the Privy Councilt
Informed the mob (Lettre Pastorale, Sept. 8, 18^5; that it had merely shown its reli-
gious sentiment ' for the holy place which the Church has consecrated.' It is notorious
hat there had been no general consecration at the time of the Guibord trial.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION. 329.

to be repeated, the Bishop of Montreal recoiled. While
excusing the peace breakers, he assumed the role of peace-
maker. The mob, it was gravely hinted, had even been
obliged to make a public demonstration to prevent the
profanation ot a sacred place. To describe as a peaceful
demonstration the outrage of a mob which prevented a
burial ordered by the Privy Council from taking place
attests a lamentable confusion of ideas. This spontaneous
demonstration, which, according to the bishop, the hearts
of the mob had inspired, he now, like a good citizen,
advised them not to repeat.

Who, it is time to ask, was responsible for all the violent
and tyrannical proceedings against the Institut-Canadien
which finally excited the violence ot this mob ? Let
Judge Mondelet answer. In no less serious a document
than his judgment in the Guibord case, this functionary
says : ' The responsibility of all this affair, the bad pas-
sions which are the fruit of ignorance and fanaticism,
raised and tanned into activity as well by the pretensions
of the bishop as by the inconsiderate sallies of the coterie
who appear to have made themselves the organ and the
reflec'ion of his will; this responsibility, let it once more
oe said, belongs neither to the worthy clergy of the
Seminary, nor to our estimable fellow-citizens, the
Marguilliers ; it belongs principally to the exaggerated
pretensions of the Bishop of Montreal and his immediate
entourage.'

The origin of all these difficulties was the attempt of
the bishop to curb and destroy that growth of independent
opinion in literary and political matters to which the
Institute had given an impulse. A Protestant journal
published in French, the Semeur Canadien, indicated the
appearance of an influence which must at once be crushed.
The Institute, having Protestants as well as Catholics
among its members, committed the sin of placing on its

i

I •

ROME IN CANADA.

files the Semeur Canadien. If the Institute would ej. .lude
all journals which treated of religious topics, it was given
to understand, it might be allowed to continue to exist
undisturbed. But the resolution proposing this exclusion
was voted down. Then the time had come for making
the attack general, and the bishop, as we have seen,
claimed the right to judge ot the morality of the books.
In vain was he told that the Institute did not consist ex-
clusively of Roman Cathohcs, and that it did not depend
altogether on them to say what books should be used.
The members were not afraid that he should examine the
catalogue, and note his objections to any books found
therein.* This the bishop undertook to do. For this
purpose he received the catalogue, which he finally re-
turned without having pointed out the objectionable
books. t

In this contest, the Institute was not without the sup-
port of many of the more reasonable and moderate of the
clergy, by whom its members were advised in the very
matter in which the bishop brought an accusation of hy-
pocrisy. The identical words in which the Institute de-
clared its submission to the decree from Rome were writ-
ten and sanctioned by those members of the clergy.

Vicar-General Truteau, who administered the diocese
of Montreal in the absence of the bishop, which was
sometimes continued for many months at a time, when
interrogated on the point, swore that he had never seen
a list of the books in the Index, and that he did not know
whether it was to be found at the bishop's palace. He
could not, therefore, have known when he was reading a pro-
hibited book, and whether he was or was not rendering
himself liable to ecclesiastical censures which entailed,
as he himself contended, refusal of the right of ecclesias-

* Deposition de Joseph Emery Goderre.
t Timoignagc de L'Hon. L. A. DessauUes.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

331

tical burial. Can it be that the want of a list of the In-
dex was the cause of the bishop not fulfilling his promise
to point out what were the objectionable books contained
in the catalogue of the Institute ?

But if the Vicar-General was innocent of all knowledge
of the Index, he could lay down with great precision
those ecclesiastical laws which relate to the possession of
prohibited books. As an administrator of the diocese, it
is easy to conceive that it might have been inconvenient
to him, in some possible emergency, to point out a single
condemned book, or to say whether the perusal of any
particular book was allowable or not. In these lucid
terms, the administrator laid down the law : ' M. Joseph
Guibord, from the fact of his being a member of the In-
stitut Canadien, belonged to a body which was and still
is under the censure of the Church, for the reason that it
possesses a library containing books prohibited by the
Church under pain of excommunication latcs sententiee
incurred ipso facto, and reserved to the Pope by the fact
of the possession of the said books. This species of ex-
communication is incurred by the simple fact from the
time that the persons in question understand the law of
the Church which prohibits thenceforth the reading and
possession thereof.' If Vicar-General Truteau had only
been possessed of a list of the Index, and had taken the
trouble to read it, what a multitude of evils might not
have been prevented.

When the Guibord case was before the Superior Court
of Lower Canada, the presiding judge, Mondelet, stopped
one of the counsel, M. Cassidy, who was giving utter-
ance to very extravagant Ultramontane pretensions, and
said : ' I wish to ask you a question, M. Cassidy. Is a
person excommunicated from the moment he reads a
book in the Index ?' M. Cassidy — ' He is, or at least his
sin will be according to the nature of the book.' The

Ml

332

ROME IN CANADA.

Judge — ' Do you pretend to say that if, to-day, I should
have occasion, in studying a cause, to open Montesquieu,
for example, that I should by the mere fact of doing so
be excommunicated ?' M. Cassidy — ' It is easy to reply,
your Honour; the laws of the Index exist or do not exist ;
if they exist, they bind all Catholics. When one ic in
doubt it is easy to apply to his spiritual adviser. The
bishop could grant a ^spensation.' The Judge — 'Then
there are a great many people out of the good road.'

Unless M. Cassidy be a better authority than the
Bishop of Montreal, he is mistaken in supposing that if
Judge Mondelet, or any other judge, found it necessary
in studying a cause to open Montesquieu, the bishop
could authorize him to do so by dispensing with the pro-
hibition. The Pope alone could grant the dispensation.

We fear that M. Cassidy is but an indifferent canonist,
for he seems to imply, though he does not say so in ex-
press terms, that the prohibition to read condemned
books is confined to Roman Catholics. Vicar- General
Truteau, though by some mischance he has never seen a
printed list of the Index, is a better authority on the
point to which Rome carries her pretensions. Being
asked, when under examination, whether the Church in
Canada claimed jurisdiction over public bodies composed
of persons professing different religions, he replied :
• The jurisdiction which the Church of Canada exercises
is a part of the universal jurisdiction of the Church.
The Church regards as those over whom she can exer-
cise jurisdiction all persons who have been baptized.
There are, therefore, only non-baptized persons belong-
ing to the Institut-Cana^'ien, who are not subject to the
authority of the Church; all others are subject to that
authority, whether they be Catholics or Protestants.
And on this principle I consider that the entire body of
the Institute was bound to conform to tlie exigencies of

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION. 3$%

the Church.' To the objection that this doctrine made
all Protestants members of the Roman Catholic Church,
the Vicar-General replied that the Church had cast them
from her bosom, and did not regard them as members ;
but claimed that, in virtue of the baptism they had re-
ceived, they were subject to her jurisdiction, Irom which
they could not release themselves, though she had the
right to deprive them of all advantage of connection with
her.

This doctrine, so comforting to Rome, offers a melan-
choly prospect for the stray sheep.

The question which the extreme assumptions of Rome
raises is not a question of Roman Catholic and Protest-
ant ; it is whether that Church can deprive the people,
without distinction, of their civil rights, without their
consent and against their will.

But, in truth, was the Institut-Canadien really con-
demned by the Inquisition ? Judge Mondelet does not
admit that it was ; the Bishop of Montreal having, the
judge contends, drawn from the decrees of, Rome infer-
ences which were not justified. Some laymen have taken
the same view ; but it does not appear to be concurred
in by the Piivy Council. The Annuairc, it may be ad-
mitted, is an official document, in the nature of a yearly-
report of the Institute. It contains, besides the balance
sheet for the year, and the constitution and rules of the
Institute, a speech of the president, a lecture of Horace
Greel)', and a speech by M. Geoffrion, ail delivered on
the twenty-fourth anniversary of the foundation of the
society. The Institute was clearly responsible for the
publication of its own report, paid for out of its funds ;
and so far it seems to be fairly open to the charge — what
2 subject of complaint ! — of liaving combatted the prin-
x,.ple of intolerance, and of having defended that of
toleration. It is true that M. DessauUes afterwards

,

i'l

'^1

'I

Hi!

1

II

334

ROME IN CANADA.

li'

Stated on oath that his object was not, in the part of the
Annuaire for which he was responsible, to write in favour
-of dogmatic toleration, but that he only contended for
personal tolerance, in a society composed of persons of
different religious creeds.

The Institute, situated in the midst of a Roman
Catholic population, and depending for its support, to
a large extent, on the good-will of that denomina-
tion, had a strong motive for attempting to efface the
impression that it had come under the censure of the
Congregation of the Inquisition. And though it is true
that the Annuaire is not the Institute, it cannot well be
denied that the doctrines contained in that report were
accepted and published by the Institute ; and if bigots
say so much the worse for the Institute, liberal-minded men
do not the less say so much the better for the Institute.

But why go to Rome when books obnoxious to the New
School require to be condemned ? Villeneuve* has let
us into the secret that the ten priests who formed the
entourage of the late Bishop of Montreal were charged,
among other things, with the examination of new books
in view of their possible condemnation. If the Vicar-
General, who was at the head of this council of ten, has
never, as he confesses, seen a list of the Index, what may
be the qualifications of the inferior clergy who form his
assistants for this office ? Certain it is that Bishop Bour-
get, by the aid of the council of ten, did assume to exer-
cise the functions of the Congregation of the Index. We
have already passed in review La Comedie Infernale of
Villeneuve. When the reply of M. Dessaulles to this
libel appeared. Bishop Bourget, as we have seen, issued a
circular to his clergy forbidding any one ' to keep, for any
purpose whatever, except to refute,' this pamphlet, * un-
less the consent of the bishop has been obtained.'

* La Com. Inf.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

33S

What is the nature of this pamphlet, the reading of
which is so peremptorily forbidden ? It is a philippic
more or less — more rather than less — amer against the local
Ultramontanes of Quebec. It was written at a time (1873)
when the press which had previously opposed the aggres-
sion of the New School had been cowed into silence, and
when an attempt was being made to gain a like conquest
over the Archbishop of Quebec, the University of Laval,
and the Seminary of Montreal. It would have been sur-
prising if the author had not caught something of the
tone ot the controversy in which he engaged. A writer
at whose head every odious epithet which the French
language supplies had been thrown, did not feel called
upon to measure and curb the force of the blows which
he struck back. When an attempt is made to stifle all
discussion, even the calmest and most moderate men
who assert their right to the freedom of opinion are
not likely to do so in a whisper. The cause of the Secu-
larists in Quebec may have been injured by the acrimony
of its advocates ; but it is better that men should assert
their right freely to express their honest convictions with
something of the bitterness which the attempt to rob
them of their rights has a natural tendency to engender
than not at all. It was not so much what M. Dessaulles
said, as what he professed to have in reserve, that made
the clerical party anxious to crush him. By what he
said he irritated his opponents beyond measure ; by what
he threatened to say in future, he alarmed their fears.

' It is,' he said, ' long since I came to understand, from
the rapid development of a tendency towards domination
in the clergy, that we are advancing towards a grave con-
test, in which perhaps many will succumb before they gain
strength to go against the tide ; but here, as elsewhere,
it will necessarily end by the victory of laicism, that is to
say, the national sovereignty, over clericism, which is the;

m

336

ROME IN CANADA.

11!

Si-

final resume of the despotism of one man. And foreseeing
this contest, I prepared to enter on it not simply with
declamation, but with tangible facts sustained by unde-
niable proof. I therefore made a special study of the
social action of the clergy in this country ; I followed
them not only in the public arena, where they appear
irreproachable to those who judge with their religious
sympathies, but also outside the scene where they are so
much flattered, and there,* Mgr., I saw many black spots,
many a rent in the sacerdotal costume caused by walking

in a thorny and dangerous pa h It it should

ever be necessary for me to render an account of certain
ecclesiastical inquests that have come to my knowledge,
I shall reveal some strange things.'

M. Dessaulles announces his determination to put an
end to the practice of denouncing calumnies against indi.
viduals in the Church ; a practice against which only
the laws of the land require to be ir /oked to crush it out
effectually. He went further : he demanded that the
priests should cease to make the pulpit the arena of poli-
tical propagandism. Numerous instances of such clerical
interference m politics are given ; in some of which the
priests went so far as to declare that to vote for the candi-
date of a particular party would be a mortal sin.

' That the intervention of the clergy in political con-
tests, especially within the walls of the Church,' we read
in the prohibited pamphlet, ' is a grave abuse, there exist
so many mandates of eminent bishops, in various parts of
the Catholic world, which so define it, that it is not ne-
cessary to resort to the use of logic to prove the fact.
And those who think so, are truly the wise and thoughtful
men of the episcopate, while we too often find those who
are neither wise nor thoughtful speaking otherwise. Com-
mon sense says that the pastor estranges from him those

* The pamphlet is in the form of letters, addressed to the Bishop of Montreal.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION

337

with whom he places himself in antagonism, and whom
he violently blames, in public, for not consulting him as
to how they should exercise their rights as citizens, or
tor acting contrary to his wishes. When the blame is
not violent in form, it is still reprehensible, from the point
of view of canon law ; for from the moment that any one
is publicly designated in a church, the attention of his
neighbours iS fixed upon him in an unfavourable manner.
This point is too elementary in canon law for your lord-
ship not to admit it. And it is evident that the undue
influence of the clergy exercised over temporal affairs, in
the name of religion, vitiates the whole constitutional
system, practically nullifies free institutions, in some
sort puts the whole political system in the hands of the
clergy ; and there are a hundred examples of what the
clergy will do with people whom they control. They are
not satisfied with their work till they have caused the
people to stagnate in ignorance and superstition.'

The writer points out the weak point in the system
which our Ultramontanes are building up : ' The
Ultramontane founds his power on the abasement
of character; he agrees only with the intelligences
which he has fashioned in his own mould ; and when the
people have been reduced to nullity and to slavery, he
triumphs in the completion of his work. There is only
one weak point in this beautiful system : when the Ultra-
montane has need of energetic characters to defend him,
in times of peril, they are not to be found, because he
has reduced them to nullity by prohibiting them from
thinking outside of the narrow sphere in which he has
immured them. This is why he is always sure to be
beaten in a time of crisis : because he has always enfee-
bled, in advance, the moral force of his defenders. And it
is fortunate that his system of universal abasement thus
carries within itself its own antidote.'

H

SS8

ROME IN CANADA.

One of the reasons for condemning this pamphlet was
that the author had shown himself hostile to Ultramon-
tanism. The charge is true, and to our mind it consti-
tutes the chief merit of the work. ' The infallibility of a
man in.^11 questions of morals, that is to say, in matters
social, political, legislative,^ legal, or scientific, over all
subjects of the temporal order, is the most terrible aberra-
tion in history. '* It is," as an illustrious priest who died
in the bosom of the Church said, " the most stupendous
insolence that has yet been offered in the name of Jesus
Christ." This principle of infallibility, in temporal mat-
ters, can only mean the exercise of arbitrary power in its
worst form ; the absolute and unlimited power of one man
who has no sort of responsibility in this world.' If the
powers attributed to the Popes were admitted, * govern-
ments would become the slaves of sacerdotalism; the people
only a troupe of animals, to be told off to ungrateful
labour without any right to enquire into the condition
that is prepared for them or to watch over their adminis-
trators ; human reason loses all her rights, because she
can only receive her direction from the Pope in every
order of things ; and there is but one sole sovereign
master of society and of states, who, according 'to the
abominable pretension of the commentators of the canon
law, " can make just what is unjust, and unjust what is
just." •

Another reason for condemning this pamphlet was be-
cause the author, so the Bishop of Montreal said, ' out-
raged with revolting insolence the Sacred Roman Congre-
gations, those supremely august tribunals which command
the respect of the entire world.' It is true that M. Des-
saulles' estimate of these Sacred Congregations was not
high. He said : • There does not exist a man worthy to
enter a government who would consent to act under the
direction of the Roman Congregations, some of which

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

l»

have been so decried by their arrets or their opinions of
decisions, at different epochs. It would not be necessary
to have studied much, Mgr., to be able to cite a hun-
dred decisions of the Roman Congregations which would
make even the clergy of to-day laugh ;' .... when
intelligent travellers have di icussed the 'public law of
the members so vaunted here of the Roman Congrega-
tions, they have been stupified with their inability to
compass the simplest questions of public law.' M. Des-
saulles accounts for this, by saying that they have read
nothing which has been published during the last fifty
years, and that they still seek in St. Thomas the solution
of social, economic, and industrial questions.

Whence did Bishop Bourget obtain the right ot prohi-
biting not only Catholics, but also all other persons who
have been baptized, from reading this or that book? Did
the Pope authorize him and the ten priestc who acted
conjointly with him in such matters to form themselves
into a local Congregation of the Index ? Or did he invest
them with the powers of the Holy Office of tlie Inquisi-
tion? We know that the bishop sighed for a Canadian
Sorbonne. Did he, in conjunction with the ten priests,
undertake to discharge the functions ot a Canadian Sor-
bonne ? But does not the idea of a Canadian Sorbonne,
which the bishop certainly did at one time encourage,
belong, in some sort, to those Gallican errors against
which he and his troupe ot writers can au hesoin declaim
so loudly ? Did not St. Louis, ol Pragmatic Sanction
lame, favour the foundation of this famous faculty of
theology ?

The Faculty of Theology of Paris was accustomed to
deal out its censures without stint, but it did not confine
itself to mere denunciation, and though it made use ot
hard words, it did not feel at liberty to dispense with
•criticism and bid adieu to reason. Its method of pro-

22

■^fl

340

ROME IN CANADA.

ceeding was at least intelligible. When it censured a
book, it let the world know why. It extracted the pas-
sage to which objection was taken, and then gave, by
way of commentary, the grounds on which its censures
were based. I have one of these performances before me
which extends to one hundred and seventy pages.* It is
a criticism marred by the anger of theological disputa-
tion ; but to the method on which it is based no objec-
tion can be taken. On the contrary, it presents some
decided advantages. The author knows precisely why
his work is censured, and it is open to him to reply on
any and every point. In this way, the public could
judge between the disputants. But the Sorbonne, while
condemning the book, does not undertake to prohibit its
use or possession. In addition to receiving the censure
of the Sorbonne, the book had been ordered by the parlia-
ment of Paris to be burned by the hand of the hangman.
After these two sentences had been passed, the Arch-
bishop of Vienne issued a mandate forbidding it to be
read within his diocese. The Bishop of Montreal, with-
out even obtaining the consent of the primate, assumed
to exercise the power of saying authoritatively what
books might and what books might not be read. What
is important to b" known in this connection, is whether
the rights of citizens, even of such as have not given him
any right to control their acts in any way whatever,
can be arbitrarily taken away by a stroke of a Roman
Catholic bishop's pen ?

But while the Bishop of Montreal confined himself
merely to denouncing M. Dessaulle's pamphlet and for-
bidding it to be read, one of the pamphleteers in thr ser
vice of that functionary set to work to decry i'

* Censure de la Facuiti de ThSologie dc Paris, Contre une Livre qui a p titre :
Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissemens des Europ^ens dans les
Deux Indes par G. T. Kaynal.

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

34«^

colour of answering its arguments and refuting its opin-
ions. Than this division of labour nothing could pos-
sibly be more convenient. The pamphleteer, though he
be the Abbo Pellefcier, who was in close connection with
the bishop, can make statements which a grave mon-
seigneur might not think it prudent to venture, and when,
as happened in this case, he writes anonymously, no-
body is responsible ; he may act as the mere amanuensis
of a high ecclesiastical dignitary, and in that case also
nobody is responsible. In the rbU he undertook it was
the duty of the abbe to decry liberty of conscience. It
all men are not indiscriminately allowed to use fire-arms,
to sell intoxicating liquors, to keep and distribute explo-
sive materials, and to circulate poisons, the abbe con-
cludes that it is equally proper to prohibit the expres-
sion of all opinions which have not been approved
at Rome. False and erroneous opinions he classes as
moral poisons, destructive of morality and religion, while
' the books and journals to which they have been consign-
ed are infinitely more pernicious than physical poisons.'
Whence it follows that the Church not only may, but
ought to, proscribe their use, under severe penalties, if ne-
cessary. If men were as generally agreed as to what
opinions are dangerous and what are safe as they are on
the deadly qualities of physical poison, this analogy
would go for something ; but in the divided state of
opinion on questions of dogma, it goes for nothing.

To the objection that there are excellent books in the
Index, the Abbe Pelletier thinks it sufficient to reply that
there are plenty of worthless people who contend that the
penitentiaries and bagnes are peopled with very honest
personages. What are we to think of reasoning which
admits no moral difference between the speculative opin-
ions of Montesquieu, Grotius, or Buarlamaqui, and the
acts of the burglar and the highwayman ? * To pretend/

34*

ROME IN CANADA.

says the abbe, ' that one has the right to read bad books*
— everything is bad which the Congregation of the Index
or the Inquisition has condemned — ' because he belongs
to a literary society which has placed itself out of the
religious sphere, is the extreme of folly. As well might
it be said that one has the right to kill, because he be-
longs to a band ot brigands. To join such a society or
association is the first crime; to act conformably to its
spirit is the second.' A member of a literary society in-
corporated by Act of Parliament possesses righis in con-
nection with that society, and of which, let us be thank-
ful, the Congregation of the Index or the Inquisition has
not yet, in this country, the power to deprive him.

But let us not be too certain. When Guibord was
burried, bishops had not the power to deprive members
of a literary society, in whose library are books con-
demned by the Index, of the right of civil burial in that
part of the cemetery which is consecrated, either as a
whole or when each burial takes place. An Act since
passed by the Provincial Legislature, which contains only
a dozen lines, invests the bishop with this power of ex-
clusion. Practically, therefore, he can give effect to the
decrees of the Congregation of the Index and of the In-
quistion, unless he be debarred from doing so by the
operation of English statutes which are in force in this
country, and which it may not be in the power of the
Local Legislature to repeal.

It is impossible that any large public library can exist
without having on its shelves many prohibited books.
On the same principle that the Institut-Canadien was con-
demned every legislative library in America offends, and
all are liable to the same condemnation : the only thing
that is wanting is some bishop with a sufficient stock ot
indiscreet zeal to denounce them to the Holy Office.

No future Guibord case can ever come before the civil

THE INDEX AND THE INQUISITION.

343-

tribunals of Quebec, the bishops having obtained absolute
power over burials from the Provincial Legislature. These
functionaries can give full effect to all the consequences
of the maior excommunication oronounced in punishment
of the sin of reading, possessing, or belonging to a literary
association which possesses, books under the ban of the
Index. Legally, the decrees the Inquisition and ol
the Congregation of the Index are not in force in Canada ;
practically they are in force in the Province of Quebec.

In New Spain, the tribunals of the Inquisition, which
held their sessions at Mexico, Lima and Carthagena,
spent mostof theirenergiesinexaminingand anathematiz-
ing books. No books, wherever produced or in whatever
language, were permitted to go into circulation till they
had been examined by the commissioners of the Holy
Office. The crime of selling a forbidden book incurred
for the first offence prohibition to the seller to deal in
books for two years, banishment from the place where the
business had been carried on, and a fine of one hundred
ducats. A repetition of the offence brought a heavier
punishment. As the fines went into the coffers of the
Inquisition, there was a strong temptation to find in the
books examined heresy, immodesty, or disrespect of the
government. No one was at liberty to use a catalogue
of books which he received from abroad till he had sent
it to the Holy Office, which was not bound to restore it.
Private individuals were liable to domiciliary visits from
the commissioners of the Inquisition, in search of prohib-
ited books, at any hour of the day or night. Permissions
to read condemned books were most generally given
to priests and monks, but this liberty did not extend
to all books. The Spanish Index expurgatorius might vie
in comprehensiveness with tlie Roman : in 1790 it con-
tained no less than five thousand four hundred and twenty

III

.344

ROME IN CANADA.

authors.* Is it any wonder that a people whose intellect
was thus stunted and repressed has, even to our time,
shown a deplorable incapacity for self-government ? The
narrow spirit of intolerance which has practically caused
the ruin of the Canadian Institute, and restricted the
reading of nearly a million of people in Quebec to books
which the Roman Index has not prohibited, is a survival
of what in many parts of the vast country which formed
New Spain no longer finds legal manilestation. In some
of the Republics of South America, Ultramontanism has,
from time to time, met resolute checks ; in Quebec, it has
steadily been gaining ground for more than a century.
What may be the relative position, in this respect, of the
offspringof New France and New Spain in the future, is
ft question which is closely connected with one of the pro-
blems of Canada's destiny.

* Depons, Voyage dans I'Am^rique

XVII.
THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

The twenty-sixth article of the S)'llabus, when transtorm-
€d from its negative to a positive form, asserts the innate
and legitimate right of acquisition and possession in the
Church. Civil governments have, however, hitherto, and
will in future, find it necessary, for their own protection
and the good ot society, to place these alleged rights under
many restrictions. If, in spite of the statutes ol mort-
main, the English monasteries once got within their grasp
a filth part oi the lands of the kingdom,* what might not
have been done in Canada, before a like restraint was put
upon the acquisitions of the French clergy ? An arret of
the Council of State, Nov. 26, 1743, gives us the an-
swer. In the Declaration of Louis XIV., prefixed to the
arret, the king, after stating what he has done for the Re-
ligious Orders, proceeds to tell what they had done for
themselves. In virtue of their privileges, they had ac-
quired such considerable properties that it becanio ne-
cessary to put a limit to their acquisitions. And, in the
year 1703, instructions were given that each of the Re-
ligious Orders in the French West Indies should not be
at liberty to possess more land than would employ a
hundred negroes. But this restriction, the king distinct-
ly states, was disregarded, and a new prohibition was is-
sued in the form of letters patent, August, 1721, that no
acquisition, either of houses or lands, should be made by
these Orders without the king's express permission in

* Hallam.

F

i

1 /■

346

ROME IN CANADA.

writing,

under

penalty of escheat to the domain of the

Crown.

And now a state of things existed in Canada which
made it necessary to extend the regulation to that colony.
Whatever favour might be merited by establishment
founded on motives of religion and charity, the king de-
clared the time had come when efficacious precautions
must be taken, not only to prevent the formation of new
establishments without the royal permission, but also to
prevent those which already existed from making new ac-
quisitions. The Religious Orders were drawing money
from commerce, lands, and agriculture, and a state of
things contrary to the common good ol society was being
introduced. '

The prohibition extended to religious communities,,
hospitals, congregations, brotherhoods, colleges, and
other communities, ecclesiastic or lay. All testamentary
dispositions in favour of these bodies were to be null. No
new foundation was to be permitted, unless on the advice
of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Intendant..
The letters patent were to mention the extent and char-
acter of the endowment, and no other was to be acquired
without further authority. The Procureurs-General were
to examine the letters patent, and if they found reas;on
for objecting to them, the letters were not to take effect..
The prohibition extended to all immovable goods, and.
all revenues derived from the property of individuals, an
exception being made in favour of certain revenues {rentes
constitues) derived from the Crown or the clergy of France.
The whole arret is of the most sweeping character, and
it placed the right of future acquisition entirely at the op-
tion of the civil government.

The provisions of this declaratii-.i were renewed by the
edict of mortmain of 1749, which was not registered in
Canada, and for that reason it became a question whether

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

347

h

it was in force there. The decisions of the courts on the
point have been conflicting.* However this may be, the
religious communities have never possessed, since 1743,
the unlimited right to acquire immovable property with-
out the express authority of the civil government. Still,
immense additions have been made to the wealth of the
Church of Rome in the Province of Quebec,

Of all the lands granted, exclusive of islands, by the
French Government previous to the conquest the Church
had managed to clutch about one-lourth. The total of
these grants was a little less than eight millions — 7,985,-
470 — of acres, and of those held in mortmain the quantity
was over two millions — 2,115,178 — of acres. The Ursu-
lines had obtained 195,525 acres; the RecoUets 945
acres ; the Bishop and Seminary of Quebec 693,324
acres ; the Jesuits, who received a larger quantity than
any other order or corporation, 891,845 acres; the Sul-
picians, 250,191 acres; the General Hospital of Quebec,
28,497 acres ; the General Hospital of Montreal, 404
acres; Hotel Dieu, Quebec, 14,112 acres; the Soeurs
Crises, 42,336 acres. t A large proportion of these lands
was situated at points to which population would first
tend, and round which it was finally to centre. The
Jesuits, besides receiving a booty altogether dispropor-
tionate to the other orders, managed to get gifts in posi-
tions where lands were best worth having. The Sulpi-
cians, and the General Hospital of Quebec, were also
both fortunate in this respect.

It may reasonably be assumed that the whole, or nearly
the whole, of the grants in mortmain had been made at
the time when Louis XIV. intervened to put a stop to
the acquisition of real estate by the Religious Orders.
As the arret could not have been required for the mere

* Abb^ Maguire. Recueil de notes diverses.
i Smith's History of Canada.

^8

ROME IN CANADA.

purpose of tying the king's hands and Umiting his bounty
large acquisitions must have been made from private
persons. That profuse grants were made by such per-
sons is notorious.

The grants were not always made directly by the
Crown to the Religious Orders, but sometimes came
through a third party, who may not have designed, when
he obtained the grant, so to dispose of it. When the
grant was not made directly by the Crown, the king gene-
rally confirmed the title, and his consent that the land
should go into mortmain was always necessary, as it had
been in France.

The Jesuits, before the suppression of their Order in
1773, had been banished from Spain and other countries.
Before these events happened, the Jesuits had conspired
against the safety of every throne in Europe. Their
doctors had openly proclaimed that no faith should be
kept with heretics ; that an excommunicated king is de-
prived of the right to his throne ; that an ecclesiastic is
independent of the government of the country in which
he lives, and owes obedience only to the chief of his
Order: doctrines, many of which they are reviving in
Canada to-day with as much fervour and boldness as ,in
times when the Order was considered most dangerous.
For, like some other Religious Orders, which were abol-
ished only to reappear, the Jesuits were restored by Pius
VII. in 1814. The spirit of peace and reconciliation
which Clement XIV. evoked in the preamble of his brief
of abolition they again contemn with the violence of
former days.

By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, all the property of the
Jesuits in Canada devolved by right of conquest to the
Crown ; but the surviving members of the Order were,
from reasons of policy, allowed to occupy and to enjoy
the rents and profits of portions of the estates during

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

349

iheir natural lives. In the year 1801, Joseph Cazot, the
last of the Order, died, and the Sheriff of Quebec seized,
on behalf of the Crown, all the property which had be-
longed to the extinct Order. Attempts, backed by the
English population, were made soon after the conquest
to get those estates applied to the purposes of educa-
tion, but without avail. It was natural, perhaps, when
the revenue of the Crown domain in Canada was dispos-
ed of at the will of the central authority in Downing-
street, that the colonists should make this demand ; and
it was equally natural, all things considered, that the
demand should be refused. The Jesuits' estates were
managed by the British Government till 183 1, when they
were handed over to local control.

To obtain a restoration of these estates was long — has
perhaps always been — a design, seldom openly avowed,
-of certain leading Roman Catholics, by whom their ap-
propriation to the uses of the Crown was denounced as
spoHation ; and it was pretended that to place them
under the control of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Que-
bec, to be applied to the instruction of Indians and the
subsistence of missionaries, would be to conform to the
intentioi: of the donors. But the bishop was not the
Jesuits, and the Jesuit Order had become extinct by an
act of the Pope. Its subsequent revival was no reason
for restoring the property. Fortunately for Canada, this
enterprise has not succeeded. But it is certain that it
has not been abandoned.

By the order of their institution, the property of the
Jesuits at no time belonged to the individual members
who happened to be missionaries in the particular coun-
try in which the. property was situated. By bulls of
Gregory XIII., the whole property of the houses of mis-
.sions was vested in the Father General.

The means taken by the Jesuits to increase their land-

350

ROME IN CANADA.

ed possessions was sometimes such as will not bear scru-
tiny. Once, at least, they were compelled to restore to
the French Crown lands of which they had illegally pos-
sessed themselves, with all the seignorial dues they had
received therefrom.* These lands were situated in the
town and banlieu of Quebec. The Jesuits had conceded
them to a number oi persons, from whom they had receiv-
ed seignorial dues to the amount of ;^3, 026 i8s. 6d. They
pleaded twenty-five years' possession, but the validity of
this plea was denied on the part of the Crown. The
same ordonnance condemned the community of the Hotel
Dieu to restore property of which it had become illegally
possessed, and from which it had derived seignorial dues
to the amount of over 3,300 livres, which, like the Jesu-
its, they had to restore along with the lands.

The first two Jesuits, Biard and Masse, who visited
New France, attempted to obtain possession of a large
extent of domain in the neighbourhood of Port Royal
(Annapolis). Poutrincourt, who had ruined himself in
colonization adventures to New France, had received as-
sistance from the wile of the Marquise de Gourcheville.
Father Biard, who with his fellow priest had brought
her into the partnership, counselled her to obtain from the
Sieur de Monts all his rights and title to lands which
Henry IV. had granted to him. The object ot this advice
was, according to Lescarbot,t that the Jesuits should
themselves get possession of the property. He adds that
they had taken care not to tell the Marchioness the extent
of the lands covered by the titles of de Monts, which
embraced ' Port Royal and the lands adjacent and so far
distant as the land may extend:' that is, to the other
side of the peninsula. These two Jesuit priests resolved
to go into a trading adventure before they set out for

♦ Ordonnance tj e. Mai, 1758.

+ Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Ed. 1618.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

351

Canada, and they bought half a cargo which Biencourt
and Robin had put on board a vessel at Dieppe. Les-
carbot prints the contract, drawn up by a notary, between
the Jesuit priests and their partners. There are other
instances of Jesuits engaging in trade in Canada, and it
became necessary to prevent them doing so by a positive
legal prohibition.

The way in which the Island of Montreal was obtained
from the original proprietor affords a remarkable illus-
tration of the influences the religious corporations some-
times exerted in the acquisition of property. The island
had been granted to Jean de Lauson, Intendant of Dau-
phine, on condition that he should plant a colony upon it.
He had, however, neglected this part of the contract. M.
de la Dauversiere had received a command from heaven,
so he said, to establish an hospital on the Island of
Montreal, and to carry out this command, the design of
obtaining a cession of the Island from M. de Lauson was
formed. The acquisition was at first to be made in the
name of the associates. M. de la Dauversiere and M. de
Faucamp went on a mission to Dauphine to ask from the
proprietor the cession of the island. The demand that he
should, without equivalent, give up a property from which
he had expected his family would derive great benefit,
was one to which he could not listen with patience. The
envoys, however, insisted on arguing the point with
him.

The failure of the mission was not taken as a final re-
fusal. M. de la Dauversiere and M. de Faucamp,
reinforced by P. Charles Lallement, the director of the
Jesuits,, went a second time to Dauphine to induce the
proprietor to make a cession of the island. This tiu e
they succeeded. Of the nature of the arguments by whicii
Ihey overcame the opposition of M. de Lauson some idea
may be formed from the circumstances ucder which they

35*

ROME IN CANADA.

were acting. The necessity of complying with a demand
from heaven would naturally be insisted on. M. de
Lauson was not likely to be left in ignorance ol the
apparition of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
which had been made to M. de la Dauversiere in the
Church of Notre Dame ; when the Saviour said : Oii
pourai-Je trotiver un serviteur fidele ? ' (where can I find a
faithful servant ?) In response to which the Divine
Mother, taking M. de la Dauversiere by the hand, pre-
sented him to her Divine Son, saying : * Void, Seigneur^
ce serviteur fidele ' (here is that faithful servant). The
Saviour received him kindly, saying : ' You shall hence-
forth be my faithlul servant ; I will invest you with force
and wisdom ; you shall have a guardian angel for guide.
Engage energetically in my work ; my grace shall be suffi-
cient for you, and you shall not want.' The Saviour then
put a ring on one of the fingers of M. de la Dauversiere^
on which were engraved the names, jfesiis, Marie, jfoseph^
and recommended him to give a like ring to each ol the
women who would consecrate herself to the Holy Family
in the congregation which he was about to establish.

In this vision, M. de la Dauversiere became acquainted
with all the persons who were to assist him in establish-
ing the proposed community on the Island of Montreal.*

We have the solemn assurance of M. Faillon that this
is veritable history.

The ' Associates for the conversion of the savages of
New France in the Island of Montreal,' being now seized
of the property, made it over, by a deed of gift, to the
Seminary of Saint Sulpice, Paris. In the same indirect
way, the Jesuits Biard and Masse, as we have seen, at-
tempted to obtain for their Order a large part of the
peninsula of Nova Scotia.

* Faillon. Vie dt Mile. Manet, et Histoire de I'Hotel Dieu de Villemarie dans llle de
Montreal, en Canada.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH,

3j3

The motives alleged for the grants to the Jesuits are
only less numerous than the grants themselves. Did a
proprietor wish to mark his friendship for the Jesuits, he
declared the fact in a grant of land to the Order. Did
some one wish to contribute to the spiritual aid of the
country and the support of missions, he made a grant ot
land to the Jesuits. Did one of the several companies
which the Government ol France created for the purpose
of colonizing Canada wish to aid in the support of the
Jesuits, it granted them a portion ot its estates. Persons
wishing to aid in the propagation of religion by the con-
version of the savages did likewise. Indeed, there was
hardly any motive capable ol moving a charitably disposed
person which might not be excited to swell the estates of
the Jesuits.

To the acquisitive appetite of the Jesuits, whetted by
long years of abstinence, or of secret and partial indul-
gence, full rein can now be given. There is nothing to
prevent them from resuming their zeal in heaping up
wealth. Over the barriers of mortmain they will leap, if
they cannot break them down; if they make acquisitions
without the authority of la* , they may safely depend on
their ability to obtain an Act placing the whole under
mortmain : the dead hand of a never-dying corporation
will be enabled to hold their property in its grasp.

Already there are indications that the Jesuits are bent
on securing a restoration of the estates which bear their
name, and which came into the possession of the Crown
on the extinction of the Order in Canada. That the
Church has a right to the whole of the Jesuit estates is
now asserted with an air of confidence which has, at no
previous time since the conquest, been equalled. The
bull ol the Pope suppressing the Order, we are told,
directed in what manner the estates which had belonged
to them should be employed. * So long as there is a Jesuit

334

ROME IN CANADA.

in the country,' says a writer, whose language makes it
morally certain that he belongs to the Order, ' he ought to
have the absolute control ol this property and the power
of disposing of it.' The English authority in Canada,
the argument proceeds, was bound to follow the directions
of the bull of Clement XIV. regarding the destination of
the property ; but that as this was not done, and the
Jesuits were not dispossessed of these estates in a legal
manner, it became, if it was not before, the property ot
the Church (biens deVEglise) ; that the Government can-
not employ it for other objects than those lor which it
was 'given.* This claim purports to be based on the
treaty oi cession, from which in fact it does not derive the
least countenance. The audacity of tone in which this
claim is now put forward, seems to indicate that hence-
torth the Jesuits will exert all their energies to secure
the restoration of these estates.

In 1845 a pamphlet was issued in Montreal anony-
mously, but which was known to be written by a gentleman
who does not object to have the designation of lay Jesuit
applied to him, in which it was contended that these
estates are still the property of the Church of Rome.

The Legislature ot Lower Canada did, at different
times, address the Imperial Government with the view of
getting these estates devoted to education ; and under
the late union an appropriation oi them to that purpose
was even made. When a transfer of the Jesuit barracks
was asked by the Legislative Assembly in 1831, Lord God-
erich, then Colonial Secretary, replied, that the request
might be complied with on one condition : That the
Assembly should secure, in substitution, other barracks
that would be sufficient for the accommodation of His
Majesty's troops. This was, in fact, to answer the de-

• See an essay in i\it Journal de Qutbev, October 2, 1877, on the Premier projet de
:1a foundation d'une university mixte k Quebec.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

355

mand for a cession of the property with a proposal to
exchange it for other lands with convenient barracks
erected thereon. At the same time, Lord Goderich an-
nounced the determination of the Crown to resign to the
Colonial Legislature those estates, to be used as an edu-
cational endowment. t This statement cannot be sup-
posed to have carried greater weight than the order,
which was twice sent from the Colonial Office to the Gov-
ernment of Upper Canada, to endow rectories out of the
clergy reserves. It was even enacted| 'that all moneys
arising out of the Jesuits' estates then in, or that might
thereafter come into, the hands of the Receiver-General,
should be placed in a separate chest,' ' and should be ap-
plied to the purposes of education exclusively.'

The intention of the British, as well as of the Colonial
Government, from these documents, is clear. Neverthe-
less the amount at the credit of that fund was almost
immediately afterwards transferred to the general fund
of the Province, with which subsequent revenues derived
from the same source afterwards continued to be mixed.
The question is, what was meant by education. Was it
an education which should be placed almost entirely
under the control of the Cath' lie Church ? As the Catho-
lic clergy of Lower Canada are fast becoming Jesuits,,
the law passed by the Quebec Legislature last session
means little short of the absolute control of all education,
the dissentient schools excepted, by the Jesuits. That
this is not what was meant by education at the time to
which we are referring, is proved by the fact that
authority had been given to erect a corporation in Lower
Canada, to be called ' the Royal Institution for the ad-
vancement of learning,' to which ' the entire management
of all schools and institutions of royal foundation in the

\ Ueipatch July 7, 1831.

: 2 Will. IV. c. 41. A statute of Lower Canada,
23

I

356

ROME IN CANADA.

Province, as well as the administration of all estates and
property ' which might be appropriated for their support,
was committed.* This Royal Institution lingered on for
some time, through a feeble existence, owing to the oppo-
sition it met from the Roman Catholic Church. This
oppositic was, according to Buller, • founded on the ex-
clusively British and Protestant character by which, it
was asserted, its organization and management were dis-
tinguished.' I am not enquiring whether the establish-
ment of such an institution was wise, reasonable, or
proper ; but only undertaking to show, that at no time
since the conquest would a proposal to give these estates
to uphold £ system of education controlled by the Jesuits
have been listened to.

The L. wer Canada statute of William IV., which was
never r -led upon, and which has been a dead letter for
over forty years, cannot be invoked in support of the
claim which there can be scarcely a doubt the Jesuits
intend to push.

The Legislature of Canada, in 1856, assumed to appro-
priate the whole of the Jesuits' estates, and the funds
arising therefrom, to the support of superior education in
Lower Canada. The fund was to be administered under
the control of the Governor in Council. Over twenty
years have passed since this Ac^ was put on the statute
book; and like the one previously noticed, it has re-
mained a dead letter.

The rest of the religious communities retained their
estates, with trifling exceptions, which may be here stated.

Soon after the conquest, the chaplain of the garrison
of Quebec made a formal proposal to the Executive Coun-
cil to take possession of the palace of the Roman Catholic
bishop, with all the property belonging to it, for the bene-

* Arthur Bullet , Report of the CommiMioncr of Enquiry into the Stale of Educa-
tio:i in Lower Canada, 1838.

*

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. 357

and

fit of the Anglican Bishop of London.f The Imperial

ort,

Gov' rnm°nt seems to have been of the opinion that it

for

would be justified in taking possession of the property of

)po-

the religious communities, on condition of granting a life

rhis

pension to the possessors by arrangement. The Lords of

ex-

the Treasury (1765) sent to Receiver-General Mills in-

i, it

structions which seem to have contemplated the practical

dis-

carrying out of a policy based on this conviction. The

ish-

ground was distinctly taken that these properties form

or

or ought to form a part of the revenue of the Crowr. j

ime

Next year the Government took possession of the Chun ii

ates

of the Recollets, Quebec, and converted it into a Protes-

uits

tant church. Some land belonging to the Ursulines was

also taken without any indemnity.;}:

was

These appear to be the only exceptions to the rule that

•for

all the religious communities other than the Jesuits were "-

the

permitted to retain their estates after the conquest.

uits

The Church of Rome had, to commence with, whei t'oe -

colony came under the dominion of the British Crowu,

)ro-

1 1223,333 acres ol land, the Jesuits' estates, which had

nds

become the property of the Crown, being deducted. The

1 in

title to the estate 0^ the Sulpicians was not always unques-

der

I:'orted, but it was finally confirmed. Sir James ..iarriot, j

nty

the King's Advocate-General, in a report on the state of t I

ute

Canada, 1765, expressed the opinu^n that the title was j

re-

invalid, and Lord John Russell arrived at the same con-

clusion when Secretary of vState for Mie Colonies. In the

leir '

year previous to Marriof s report, the British Government

ed.

IS said to have shown a disposition to buy these estates. §

3on

But the Council ot the Seminary of Paris, after frequent

un-

deliberations, refused to part with the property, on the

)lic

ground that the suppression of the establishments of Saint

ne-

i Garneau.

laca-

; Pagnuello.

i Archives du Seminaire de Paris. Aaetmb)ee du ai Janvier, 17C4.

358

ROME IN CANADA.

Sulpice in Canada would have rendered it necessary to
recall forty ecclesiastics who were connected with them^
and that it would have been impossible to replace and
retain so large a number of priests. Nearly all the mem-
bers of the Society of Saint Sulpice resided in France, and
the question was whether, under the capitulation, they were
entitled to sell or retain their property. The thirty-fifth
article provided that if the priests of St. Sulpice exercised
the option of leaving the colony and going to France,
they should be at liberty to sell their estates. Sir James
Marriot was of opinion that the Sulpicians, ' who as prin-
cipals at the time of the conquest were not resident in
person, did not fall under the privilege of the capitula-
tion, nor come within what is termed by civilians the
casus foederis, so as to retain the property of their estates
under it.' And the reason of this was that they were not
in a position to accept a favour as a condition of ceasing
their resistance, or objects of distress, or persons who had
shown a courage which merited some special mark of
favour. Nor could they retire from a country in which
they did not live. The Sulpicians at Paris transferred to
their brethren in Canada what, it is argued, they had no
right to transfer. Attorn Jv-General Sewell, in 1828,
gave an elaborate opinion against the claim of the
Seminary to the estates which bear its name. This
opinion embraces several points which it may be interest-
ing to recapitulate. The motive of the gift of the Island
of Montreal to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, in
1663, by an association tor the conversion of Indians in
that Island, created a trust which was never fulfilled, and
the title was bad for non-user. The French king after-
wards authorized the establishment of a Seminary at
Montreal to carry out the grant. The ownership was in
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and the Seminary of Mont-
real did not subsist as a separate corporation. The deed

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

359

of gift, April, 1764, by which the Seminary of Saint Sul-
pice, Paris, assumed to convey the property to the Sem-
inary of Montreal, is void. The Island of Montreal being
vested in a foreign community, incapable of holding lands
in Her Majesty's dominion, the right ot property would
devolve to the Crown. The estates were public property
held by the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, under trust
for a particular purpose, and they fell to the Crown by
right of conquest. The absence of a right to transfer the
property must make the deed ot gift null. The right of
property in the Seminary was only that of administrators,
and not such as would entitle them to convey. The
grantees not being a distinct corporation, v/ere incapaci-
tated from taking under the deed. Without a new char-
ter, the Seminary could not be prolonged after the death
of such of its members as were alive at the time of the
conquest. Tlie Attorney-General was of opinion that the
rights of the Crown to the property could be enforced in
the courts.

But this colourable title, however doubtful it may have
been, was confirmed by ordinance of the Special Council
of Lower Canada in 1840.

For the purposes of this ordinance, the ecclesiastics
of the Seminary are erected into an ecclesiastical corpo-
ration [Communautc EccUsiastlque). It does not follow
that the title which this ordinance confirms is absolute,
for there is no pretence that it is other than that which
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, had in the year 1759.
Accordins( to the opinion of Sir James Marriot, the Sul-
picians of Paris had no title at all. ' By the French law,'
he says, 'it is clear that no persons, aliens, not being natur-
alized, can hold lands ; so that by the right of conquest,
these estates may be considered to have fallen to the
Crown, in sovereignty.' The objects of the confirmation
of title were specific and limited : 'The cure of souls with-

i

309

ROME IN CANADA.

in the parish (La Desserte de la Paroisse) of Montreal ;
the mission of th ^ Lake of the Two Mountains, for the
instruction and spiritual care of the Algonquins and Iro-
quois Indians ; the support of the Petit Seminaire or Col-
lege at Montreal; the support of schools for children
within the parish of Montreal ; the support of the poor
invalids and orphans ; the sufficient support and main-
tenance of the members of the corporation, its officers and
servants ; and the support of such other religious, charit-
able, and educational institutions as may from time to
time be approved and sanctioned by the Lieutenant-
Governor,' and ' for no other objects, purposes, or intents
whatsoever.' The corporation came under an obligation
to commute the seignorial tenure of its estates at specified
rates. The total amount which the Sulpicians might re-
ceive in commutation was limited, and any overplus was
to go to the Crown. These were the conditions of the
confirmation of a title which is probably now indefeasible.

There was one clause in this ordinance which may
hereafter require to be extended to many other religious
corporations. The xight of visitation which the French
Crown possessed before the conquest, and which the
Special Council was careful to state is now possessed
by the British Sovereign, is specifically preserved.

The political motives for a confirmation of the title,
which Bishop Piessis had urged on the Impv^rial Govern-
ment in a memorial to Earl Bathurst (1819), had proba-
bly not been without effect. If there were any doubt
about the validity of the title, the Sulpicians were pre-
pared to give irrefragable proof of its legality. As to the
greatness of the wealth so much talked about, there was,
he said, very little left after the cost of administration had
been paid and the support of the community provided for.
But even if the Government could derive a profit from the
seizure of these estates, was that to be put in the 'balance

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

36r

against the discontent and disaffection which such a pro-
ceeding would excite in the minds of the Catholic subjects
of His Majesty in the Province, and principally in the
district of Montreal, which was a daily witness of
the exemplary and honourable uses to which the pro-
perty was put ? ' His Majesty's Government had always
treated his Catholic subjects with unexampled considera-
tion {line bonte sans example), even before their loyalty
had been so manifest as it had become in the late war.
Surely, at such a time, so rigorous a measure, and one
that would cause general alarm, ought not to be expected.
If one religious community were despoiled, the habitans
would regard it as the signal for despoiling all the others.
To attack the revenues of the clergy would be to paralyze
their influence over the people ; an influence which for
sixty years had been constantly used to inspire the faith-
lul with the duty of submission to the king and his gov-
ernment. This influence could not be enfeebled without
loosening the strongest tie that attached these people to
His Majesty's government.'

This is the language ot diplomacy, and it may have
saved the estates from forfeiture at the time ; while fur-
ther political considerations probably led to the confir-
mation of the title in 1840. Bishop Lartigue, of Mont-
real, a relative of Louis Joseph Papineau, the leader of the
rebellion of 1837 in Lower Canada, came to the aid ot the
Government in that crisis. The Church seems to have
reaped the reward of these services, in having had
secured to it the estates of the Sulpicians.

A Church in possession of vast estates is liable, like in-
dividuals, to have its title to some portion of it contested.
A regrettable affair, arising out of rival claims to pro-
perty at the mission of Oka, Lake of Two Mountains,
occurred in 1875. The Indians claimed some property on
which a Methodist chapel was built, and the Seminarists

362

ROME IN CANADA.

■m

of St. Sulpice, who also claimed the property, brought
the matter before the Superior Court. Judgment was
rendered in their favour, and they proceeded, as proprie-
tors of the land, to demolish the Methodist chapel,
through the agency of the sheriff. The benches were
first removed, and the materials ot which the chapel was
composed were, by order of the sheriff, carried within the
enclosure of the Seminary. A few days later some
Catholic Indians and the missionary priest caused them
to be conveyed to the grounds of the Protestant school.
The demolition of the chapel occupied only three hours.

After the chapel had been removed further legal pro-
ceedings were commenced on behalf of the Methodist
Indians against the Seminary, and the case is still before
the courts. The proprietary rights have in the mean-
time been decided by the Superior Court in favour of the
Seminary. Whether it was judicious for the Seminary,
standing on its extreme rights, to proceed to an extremity
that would be sure to create a great scandal and enlist the
sympathies of a portion of the population in favour of its
antagonists, is more than doubtful. It would have been
better to make an arrangement by which the ground occu-
pied by the chapel should have been conveyed to the
opposite party, if the latter had shown a disposition to
enter into an arrangement to that effect.

Some outrages were at a later period committed by the
Indians, on both sides, first by those under the charge of
the Seminary, and afterwr ;ds by those opposed to it, in
which a Roman Catholic Church was (1877) burnt down.
Such outrages are generally committed by the less respon-
sible hangers on of one side or the other ; and their
adoption by the principals would discredit any cause,
however sacred.

The appointment of M. Lartigue, Suffragan Auxiliary
and Vicar-General of Quebec, for the city and district of

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

30s

Montreal, in 1822, caused some alarm among the Sulpi-
cians for the security of their property. The danger came
this time from an exertion of episcopal or extra-episcopal
authority ; and M. Roux, Superior of the Seminary, was
sent to Rome to obtain the permission of the Holy See to
selltheestatesofthe Order to the British Government. The
authority was given, but the Bishop of Quebec refused his
assent, and sent two agents to Rome whose arguments
induced the Pope to recall it.* It was necessary to pro-
test, on behalf of the biPiop, that he had no design to
seize upon the property of the Sulpicians. The disclaimer
did not altogether quiet the lears of the latter, and the
breach then made between them and the episcopal author-
ity was never healed. Mgr. Provencher admits that
the idea that the bishops of Canada were capable of rob-
bing the Church of its immense property is one that
became generally accepted by the Catholic world of
Europe : he characterized the accusation as ' a lie and a
calumny.' It seems, however, to have been believed
even at Rome ; and this belief made the Pope willing
to sanction a sale of the property to the British Govern-
ment.

M. Bedard, the Sulpician priest who had deserted the
cause of his Order and espoused that of the bishop, had,
we have seen, used the language of menace. Montreal,
he suggested, could be wrested from the hands of the
Sulpicians and served by a cure and priests who did not
belong to the Seminary, and they might be displaced from
the control of the missions of the Lake of Two Mountains,
Sr.ult St. Louis, and St. Regis. Against this danger
the Sulpicians appeared afterwards to be guarded by the
ordinance of 1840, which, as before stated, made it a con-
dition of the confirmation of their titie that they should
continue to have the cure of souls in the parish of Mont-

• Mem. de Mgr. ]. N. Provencher.

364

ROME IN CANADA.

real, and the charge of the mission of the Lake of Two
Mountains for the instruction and spiritual care of the
Algonquin and Iroquois Indians.

But the Bishop of Montreal, if he could not drive a
coach and four through the ordinance, was one day to
become strong enough, by the aid of the Pope, to treat it
as waste paper. There were besides three episcopal
decrees and one arret of the French Icing which gave the
cure of souls, in the parish of Montreal, in perpetuity to
the Sulpicians. The guarant4§ of perpetuity Bishop
Bourget afterwards treated as nothing, and lound, in the
fact that episcopal decrees had been rendered, that au-
thority to take away the rights ol the Sulpicians was vested
in him.* The argument is a dangerous one, because it
might easily be turned in the other direction. The civil
government has twice passed laws and regulations re-
garding this property, and has several times done so on
the subject of tithes. The argument that this proved
that both were at the absolute disposal of the Government
is not less - legitimate than that used by the bishop.
When the decree came from Rome, December 22, 1865,
authorizing Bishop Bourget to divide the city into as
many parishes as he might judge necessary, and each of
these parishes, as well as the cureof Notre-Dame, was to
be administered, not by the Superior of the Seminary,
but by priests whom the bishop might appoint, the
assumption was conveyed that Bishop Bourget and the
Pope united could set aside one of the conditions of the
ordinance of 1840. The Government, through Sir George
Cartier, protested that this was an invasion of the rights
of the civil authority. The bishop replied that his inten-
tion, as well as that of the Pope, was to erect canonic
parishes.t Sir George Cartier, representing the civil

•■ Lettre Pastorale, 26 Avril, 1866.
f Lettre Pastorale, 23 Mai, 1866.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

365

authority, was brushed aside like a cobweb, and victory
perched upon the united banner of the Pope and the
bishop. The ordinance of 1840 was treated as of no
account.

If the wealth of one portion of the Church excites the
envy of another portion, is there not danger that it it
should increase beyond all bounds, it may excite cupiditj'
in other quarters ?

Starting with 1,223,333 acres of land in 1763, the Roman
Catholic Church of Quebec must now be in possession of
an enormous mass of wealth. Its acquisitions may have
been somewhat checked by the operation of the laws of
mortmain; but the quantity of land that has legally been
placed under mortmain during the last twenty years has
been very considerable. It would be an interesting inquiry
to attempt to find by what means the bishopric of Mont-
real had, in fifty-five years, become the largest holder of
real estate in the city of Montreal, with one exception.
If anything like a similar accumulation of wealth has
taken place in other places, the domain of the Church
must be extending at a rate that may well give cause of
uneasiness.

The immunity from municipal taxation which large
masses of Church property enjoys puts a yoke on the neck
of lay proprietors which already begins to sit uneasily. The
question of putting an end to it has recently been raised
in Montreal. The municipalities are unable to make any
change, for the exemptions are contained in laws which
they do not make, but only administer. A change in the
law has already many advocates ; but in the present state
of things they cannot hope to succeed against the predo-
minant power of the Church of Rome in the Province of
Quebec. Already the episcopate is on the alert, and has
made a sign which shows that it intends to resist the
change with all the power it can command. In a circu-

366

ROME IN CANADA.

lar issued in November, 1875, the seven bishops, on the
strength of their united authority, instruct the priests
that if the municipalities or other civil authorities speak
of taxing the property of the churches and of the religious
communities, the priest is to communicate the fact to the
bishop under pain ot excommunication. To be logical,
the bishops would have to pursue with the terrors of ex-
communication the members of the Legislature who
should venture to touch this sacred immunity ; and that
they would do so we can hardly permit ourselves to doubt,
in presence of the attitude the New School has assumed.
It is easy to foresee what the line of defence will be,
when the attack upon the immunity from taxation be-
comes serious. We shall then be told, though the con-
trary is otten asserted, that the rule observed in France
at the time of the conquer t must be our guide. Luckily
for the bishops, the French clergy, shortly before the con-
quest of Canada, were able to defeat the attempt of the
Comptroller-General to obtain a statement of the value
ot the ecclesiastical property in France, with a view of
making it bear a due proportion of public charges with
the property of the rest of the nation. Up to that time, the
French clergy had been in a position to dispute the
amount of taxes demanded from them, and what they paid
went under the name of a free gift {don gratuit).* The
triumph of the French clergy was odious to the more en-
lightened part of the nation. Of this triumph they were to
pay the penalty in the storm of the coming revolution.
The temper they were then in is shown by the fact that, in
obedience to the Bull Unigenitus, they were pronouncing
excommunications, and, contrary to an arret of Parliament,
were refusing the sacraments to such as could not pro-
duce tickets of confession. Coffin, successor of Rollin in
the University of Paris, and several others, were deprived

* D'Anquetil. Histoire de France.

1, 1: li

I' wl

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

367

of spiritual consolation in the article of death. In the
quarrel between the clergy and the parliament, the king
took sides with the former. Clergy and king were heap-
ing up wrath which was one day to overthrow both the
throng and the altar.

But it the tax be withheld, will the don gratuit be
offered ? No : it will then be in order to plead the pre-
scription of over a hundred years, and to prove that
when a precedent is cut into halves, one half is equal to
the whole.

But if we must go to France to find rules for our con-
duct, we must at least be permitted to bring back with us
the fact that the French Church did, in another way,
contribute largely to the public burdens. The tithes were
almost everywhere charged with rentes constituees, part of
which went to private persons. These charges amounted
at one time to fourteen hundred thousand livres.f

No doubt it may fairly be argued that whatever the
Church contributed to the maintenance of the State,
unless under constraint, belongs to the category of don
gratuit. One Pope, while forbidding the clergy to pay
a tax demanded by the State, made the cheap vaunt
that in case of necessity, of which he was to be the judge,
he would sell the sacred chalices to aid the civil powei.
As the power of the Popes increased, the immunities of
the Church were so enlarged as to exempt it from all con-
tributions, except in cases of extreme necessity and when
the revenues of the laity proved insufficient. The trans-
fer of the heritage of the nobles and routuriers to the clergy
tended to impoverish the State. But the French king
had a right to require the Church to dispossess itself of
newly acquired property, unless it had, by his authority,
been placed under mortmain. Private persons were not
always at liberty to alienate and transfer to th 3 Church

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lands they possessed without leaving it subject to the
ordinary contribution to the State. The French Church,
in the matter of temporalities, was subject to the king
and owed him service. All the temporal revenues which
the Church of France possessed were held in n#f or in
roture of the Crown. The seigneurs held in fief of the king,
unless the king and the seigneurs had placed such revenue
"under mortmain. When the heritage was held of some
•seigneur in fief, the seigneur could compel the Church,
within a given time, to vacate the property, and in case of
refusal could seize it and gagner les fruits.

But there are precedents for taxing Church property in
Canada. When the French were masters of the coun-
try, the civil government levied a tax on the property ol
the Sulpicians of Montreal, as well as on the other reli-
gious communities, to meet the expense of enclosing the
town within a wall of masonry. Of the six thousand
livres a year to be raised for this purpose, from the
whole of the inhabitants, religious and secular, two thou-
sand, or one-third of the whole, was payable by the
Seminary. When the fire of June, 1722, had destroyed
half the town, including the best houses, and diminished
the revenues of the ecclesiastics, the amount payable by
the Seminary each of the next three years was reduced
to a thousand livres a year; and the payment of the other
four thousand livres, during these three years, by the
rest of the inhabitants of the city, including the other re-
ligious and secular communities, was allowed to cease
altogether. One wealthy religious community was, dur-
ing this interval of time, alone of all the inhabitants, tax-
ied for this object.* It is certain that, under the French
regime in Canada, the scandal of so enormous an amount
of untaxed property as is now held by the Church in
i^uebec would not have been permitted.

* Ktvit 34 Mart, 17M'

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

3«9

The sweeping into mortmain of all the lands of which
the Church of Rome had become possessed, by an ordin-
ance ot the Special Council of Lower Canada, 1839, con-
firmed the title to an immense mass of property which
she had had no legal right to acquire. It included all
the real property then in the possession of every parish,
mission, or Christian society, whether acquired for
churches, chapels, public buildings, cemeteries, presby-
teries, school-houses, and the houses of the founders of
Religious Orders. Every parish, mission, or Christian
society, which did not form a parish recognized by the
civil law of the Province, was authorized to acquire real
estate through agents ; and so far as these parishes,
missions, and societies were concerned," the last remnant
of the salutary safeguard which Louis XIV., in 1643, had
placed against the acquisition of property by the Roman
Catholic Church was swept away. There was no provi-
sion that this property should contribute, like the pro-
perty of laymen, to local improvements. The amount
of property which might thus be acquired was not un-
limited ; but it might practically be made so by the in-
definite increase of Religious Corporations. Parishes,
missions, and Christian societies, corporations not pre-
viously recognized as parishes by the civil law now re-
ceived such recognition. The means for erecting
churches and presbyteries, and providing a cemetery,
may be obtained either by voluntary contributions, or a
local rate which the majority can constrain the minority
to pay.f In this respect modern legislation but follows
the traces formed by the early edicts of the French
kings. In 1663, it became obligatory on the faithful to
provide churches, and sixteen years later the obligation
was extended to presbyteries and cemeteries.

Contrary to the provisions of the edict of mortmain

See Pagnuelo, Lib. Relig., and Judge Baudry, Code des Cur^t.

370

ROME IN CANADA.

which bears the name of Louis XIV., a Religious Cor-
poration can now, under the 352nd article of the Code
Civile of Quebec, be formed by prescription. A mission
becomes a corporation by the mere fact of its existence:^
and it possesses the same rights as any other religious
society or congregation whatever.* Under the French
dominion no religious corporation could be created
otherwise than by letters patent.

Similar legislation took place in Upper Canada (On-
tario). At the request of Bishop Power of Toronto, and
Coadjutor Phelan, administrator of the diocese of Kings-
ton, an Act was passed erecting them severally into cor-
porations sole and perpetual, with the right to possess
real estate without restriction either as to quantity or the
revenue it produced, and making them proprietors of all
the churches and chapels which might in future be erect-
ed in the diocese. The old way of defeating the law of
mortmain was to place real property which the Church
could not receive in the hands of trustees. All property
held so was, by this Act, made to pass to the bishop,
and he was empowered to alienate it, if a good chance
for a speculative sale offered, with the consent of the co-
adjutor and the oldest Vicar-General, or two ecclesias-
tics selected by the bishop, in case of the absence or ill-
ness of the other functionaries. All new bishoprics to
be founded in future were to enjoy these unbounded
privileges.t

It is always difficult to find out the amount of the
wealth of a Church which is subject to no annual assess-
ment, and not bound to make an annual return to the
Legislature.

Ir 1854, thelate Anglican Bishop ofToronto.Dr.Strachan^
estimated the average value of the livings of the Roman

* Cap. 9 Consol. Stat. Lower Canada,
f 8 Vic. cap., 8a.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

371

an

Catholic clergy 0/ the Province of Quebec at $1,000 a
year each. If this estimate be correct, though it is pro-
bably too high, those clergy are at present in receipt of a
million dollars ayear, for their number is, as we have seen,
over a thousand. At that time. Bishop Strachan estimated
the endowments, tithes, and other dues of the Roman
Catholic Church in that Province at a capital value of
twenty millions of dollars, which at five per cent, would
yield a million dollars a year. He stated the number of
the clergy, exclusive of those employed in colleges and
shut up in monasteries, at four hundred, which is much
less than half their present number. If the increase ol
property has kept pace with that of the number ot
priests, it would amount to-day, in value, to filty mil-
lions of dollars. Where the endowment originally con-
sists of lands in a state of nature, the increase in value ar.
population and wealth augment is very great. A reli-
gious corporation which never dies, and never sells its
real estate, cannot, when it early acquires a wide extent
of domain, help becoming wealthy.

A great difference between the mode of dealing with
the Protestant Clergy Reserves and the Roman Catho-
lic endowments is, that at a comparatively early date it
was decided that the first, instead of being held in mort-
main, should be sold, and the proceeds alone should form
the endowment. The advantage of the increase in
value would have been lost, and the fund to be realized
from sales would probably have been not over a twentieth
part ot what the revenue might have been, if the lands
could have been retained. The Roman Catholic Church,
by holding her estates in mortmain, has added enormously
to her wealth.

The great major'ty of the Religious Corporations are

restricted in their rights cf acquisition and possession of

real estate ; there i» a definite limit to what their charters
24

373

ROME IN CANADA.

allow them to hold. The measure applied to them is a
money value. Many of these corporations must largely
have exceeded the legal limit. When this happens, tile
question might arise whether they have a legal rights
even as the law now stands, to exemption from taxation
on that surplus which they have no legal right to hold.

One great source of wealth is the unparalleled power of
absorption which the Church of Rome possesses. There
is nothing which she cannot turn to account. She finds
the means to enable her to pick up every bargain, and to
utilize every species of substantial building which is no
longer applied to its original destination, and which is
passing through that transition stage in which it is wait-
ing for a new employment. No pressure of bad times, no
degree of commercial depression, seems to affect the
purchasing power of that Church: she can command
funds at all times, and for all the bargains, m the way of
improved real estate, that offer. Her acquisitions are
alarmingly great, not in Quebec alone, but in some of the
other Canadian Provinces, including Ontario. It is now
beginning to be understood that every piece of property
which goes into mortmain increases the burthens of the
laitj . The present generation is spelling out a lesson
which every lay:aan could repeat but too easily in the
middle ages.

The exercise of an extraordinary power of raising money
and amassing wealth is as old as the Church in Canada.
No difficulty in the shape of debt disheartens the Church.
When Madame Youville undertook the administration of
the General Hospital of Montreal, in 1752, it was bur-
thened with a debt of 48,486 livres, the whole of which
she undertook to find the means of discharging.

Another source of wealth for the Church of Rome is
found 111 lotteries. Ir^to the morality of lotteries, taken in
the lump, it is not necessary to enter. The prevailing

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

373

ig

laws of most countries have, beyond a doubt, given
a colour to the popular idea of morality. Govern-
ments have, with a singular approach to unanimity,
voluntarily renounced their right to the exploitation of
this source of revenue, and what they have denied
themselves they have forbidden to their subjects.
But in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario the
end is held to sanctify the means. What laymen
may not do for secular objects, the Church may do
in the name of religion. Lotteries are legal only when
money is wanted for pious uses. Lottery tickets to the
amount of millions are offered to the public in Quebec,
and apparently they find purchasers. Here is one, the
Grand Loterie du Sacre Coeur, in which the prizes offered
amount nominally to over a quarter of a milUion of dol-
lars ($272,782). Some of the prizes are of undoubted
value, but they comprise only a small portion of the whole.
There are seven purses of gold, which make altogether
$15,400. This is not subject to any discount : the whole
amount must be paid. But the very next item, figuring
up to no less than $250,000 — round numbers are exceed-
ingly convenient — is one which allows the utmost lati-
tude to the imagination. It is divisible into five hundred
building lots, of which the average value is set down at
$500 each. Whether they are in Eden or in the moon,
the advertisement does not tell. What is their real value ?
But why should we be sceptical ? Have we not the
guarantee of a long array of names, including those of
high ecclesiastical and civil dignitaries, with the Bishop
of Montreal at their head? Then there are precautions
for the honesty of the drawing. The committee of direc-
tion comprises a priest, the Provincial Visitor of the
Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes, and several respectable
citizens, and the managing director gives ' considerable
security.'

374

ROME IN CANADA.

Eleven of the prize^ would properly come under the
name of church lurniture, including chasubles, chalices,
censor and altar garniture, and would be useless to any
lay winner for any purpose but to convert into gifts.
Hence, lose who may, the Church has a double certainty
of winning.

Lotteries of this kind are announced every few months,
and they must bring heavy showers of gold into the
treasury of the Church.

If lotteries for pious purposes are to be continued, they
ought, strange as it may sound, to be placed under the
regulation of law, to ensure honest management. The
methods followed in State lotteries offer tiie best models
for imitation. The scheme adopted in France by the
Council of State in 1776 seems to be very complete. The
whole theory of the doctrine of chances is elaborately
worked out in detail.* It is perhaps not difficult to ac-
count for this form of gambling having been retained for
Church purposes after it had been discarded by govern-
ments as a means of revenue and denied to laymen as a
dangerous pastime. People half disposed to give money
for Church purposes ctin be induced by a remote chance
of gain to do so ; and there is much less anxiety to win
than when the object of the venture is simply the hope of
gain delusively indulged against certain odds. In the
streets of Mexico, a familiar sound is, or was not long
ago, a cry that the last ticket of some favoured saint was
for sale.t

The tithes of which the Roman Catholic Church in
Quebec enjoys the possession are not the same in amount
or in the number of objects on which they are levied as
those collected in countries which follow the canon law
of Rome, according to which they should be exactly a

See Die. Univ., mot Loterie, t. 24.

El ultimo billeto de Sor San Jose que me ha quedado para la tarde

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

375

tenth, and should be paid in respect to all products
whether industrial or natural. Nor do they coincide with
the tithes formerly paid in France, where they were re-
stricted by custom, and varied from a tv/elfth to less than a
thirteenth part. The Popes tried in vain to collect the
lull tenth.

Tithes were first instituted in Canada in 1663. They
at first comprised one-thirteenth part of all kinds of produce,
whether of the labour of man or the spontaneous growth
of the soil. The burthen proved to be too great, and the
amount of the tithes was reduced in 1667 to one twenty-
sixth part ; payment was made obligatory, to the discon-
tent of many of the habitans. Men were not slow to re-
call the fact that the Capucins had, some years before,
offered their services in the cure of souls, without the ex-
action of compulsory tithes in payment. The offer was
refused, and their church at Montreal, probably through
the influence of the Jesuits, was placed under interdict.

The grains on which tithes are paid are wheat, Indian
corn, rye, barley, oats, and peas. The tithes are payable
at Easter ; but no tithe is payable in respect to crops
raised on new land during the first five years. They are
payable in kind, and the farmer is required to take the
grain, threshed and winnowed, to the presbytery at his
own expense.

When a Roman Catholic ceases to belong to that
Church, and wishes to avoid the obligation of paying
tithes, he must make a formal declaration of apostacy,
or show that he has joined some Protestant denomina-
tion. It has been decided that a Protestant, occupying
as tenant the lands of a Catholic proprietor, is bound to
pay tithe. Lands which had become free from tithe by
falling into the possession of a Protestant, become again
subject to it, though they had been in his possession

376

ROME IN CANADA.

m

thirty years, on once more becoming the property of a
Roman Catholic*

It has been contended that the right of the Roman
Catholic priests to tithes existed, under the British
dominion, before the passing of the Quebec Act t But
it is certain that the articles of capitulation made the
perception of tithes subject to the king's permission, and
that the question remained in a state of suspense until
the passing of the Quebec Act. No doubt the power of
the sovereign to alter the laws of a country by proclama-
tion is limited ; but these are the articles of capitulation to
which both conqueror and conquered are parties ; and
if ever they can be appealed to, they can in this
case. It is felt, no doubt, that if the right to collect
tithes depended on a British statute passed twelve
years after the conquest, they would rest on a less en-
during foundation than if covered by the guarantee of a
law which the cession of the country did not for a mo-
ment suspend. But, in a self-governing country, the
permanence of tithes must ultimately depend on the
bent of public opinion. Some years ago there was,
among the Catholics of Quebec, a party, small indeed,
but energetic and enthusiastic, which, among other de-
vices, inscribed on its banner ' the abolition of tithes.'
This ' plank ' has, for the time being, been submerged
in the ocean of Ultramontanism ; but more unlikely
things than that it should again rise to the surface have
come to pass.

An Upper Canada member of the Legislature about
the time to which v/e refer, gave notice of his intention to
move a resolution looking to the abolition of tithes ; but
the motion was not proceeded with ; and it may safely be

* SeeGarneau, Histoire du Canada; Judge Baudry, Codt des Cutis; Langevin,
Droit administratif, ou Manuel des Paroisses et Fabriques.

t B. A. Testard de Montigny, Avocat, Histoire du Droit Canadien.

IKE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

377

said, that if tithes are ever to be abolished, the movement
will come from those who are interested in their
payment.

A neglect to pay tithes before the end of Easter sub-
jects the delinquent to spiritual censures ; the exception
being, where the payment by that time would have been
very injurious to him {dommage considerable). \ Some-
times the majority of the inhabitants of a parish refused
to pay their tithes till compelled by legal process ;§ some-
times the proportion of defaulters was less ;{| sometimes
the judicial order to pay extended to all the inhabitants
ot a parish, without naming the number or proportion
of those in arrears.^ The fine, where a refusal to pay was
persisted in, appears generally to have been ten livres.

This sin is placed among the reserved cases, for which
the bishop alone can give absolution, unless the person
under censure be in probable danger of death.

As late as 1839, the Roman Catholic clergy asserted
a right to collect tithes in Upper Canada ; and
making a merit of their forbearance to do so, they claim-
ed by way of compensation the right to become stipen-
diaries of the Government. They had already been in re-
ceipt of a small annual grant, which had been made for a
purpose about to be described, and they now asked an in-
<;rease of tLe amount.

To make a National Church out of an alien religion was,
from the first, hopeless. The Imperial (iovernment, as
we have seer, conceived the idea, soon after the conquest,
ot transplanting, the National Church establishment to
the new colony, and endowing it with an authority
which would enable it to overshadow the Church of

} Extrait du Nouveau Rituel de Quebec.
S yugetnent des Intendant,3 Juillet, 1730.
II Jugement de Began, 27 Avrit, 1716.
IT jMgentent de Begon, Mai 21, 1717.

378

ROME IN CANADA.

B;'!

Rome. While Roman Catholics were to pay tithes ta
their own clergy, the lands held by the rest of the popula-
tion were to be subject to tithes for the support of a Pro-
testant clergy. The theory of establishing a National
Church in the colony was, that the political attraction of
the colony to the parent state could in this way be best
secured. Colonel Simcoe, who was regarded as an au-
thority in colonial matters, for no other reason than that
he had served in the American war, recommended a
Church establishment as the best counterpoise to the
democratic influence which pervades colonial society.
Dundas regarded a Church establishment as a political
necessity and a means of curtailing the influence of
* enthusiastic and fanatical preachers' on the minds of
the multitude.

A commencement was made by providing that
a proportion equal to one-seventh of all the land
granted should be reserved for the support of a
Protestant clergy, which Simcoe was no doubt correct in
assuming it was intended to treat as a national clergy.
A bishopric of Quebec was created, and a bishop ap-
pointed. But it was soon found that the tithes intended
lor the Protestant clergy would have to be abandoned;
and the discovery was promptly acted upon. The An-
glican ministers sent to Canada were at first promised
temporary salaries by the Imperial Government.

The Presbyterians in connection with the Church of
Scotland claimed a right to share in the Clergy Reserves ;
and as the legal meaning of the term ' Protestant clergy '
comprised the clergy of the Church of Scotland as well as
those of the Church of England, their claim could not be
denied. The Imperial Government, however, anxious to
preserve the whole of the Clergy Reserves for the Church
of England, resorted to the policy of paying small annual
sums to quiet the Scottish claimants. But before long

I:

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

37»

of

the Local Legislative Assembly assumed an attitude of
hostility to the scheme ol establishing a National Church ;
first, by proposing an equal division oi the endowment
among all sects, and next, by advocating its alienation ta
secular uses. In time, five denominations other than the
Church of England were allowed to receive slender
stipends Irora the State.

Forty years after authority was first given for setting
apart these reserves, the failure of the object they were
designed to attain had to be confessed. At the sugges-
tion of the Imperial Government, a bill was introduced
into the Local Legislature of Upper Canada to reinvest
these lands in the Crown. But whether the recommenda-
tion was merely made lor the sake of appeasing public
opinion in the colony, or whether the local Oligarchy
intended to defeat the measure, in defiance of positive in-
structions from England, certain it is that the bill, of
which the dralt had been prepared in the Colonial Office,
did not get beyond its first stage. Ii the Clergy Reserves
were to be abandoned, the Church ol England might be
aided out ol the Crown Lands revenue, which was still
under Imperial control. Lord Goderich sent out instruc-
tions to the Lieutenant-Governor to apply six thousand
pounds, in the year 1832, towards the maintenance of the
bishop and ministers of the Church of England in Upper
Canada. This seems to attest the sincerity of the de-
clared intention of the Imperial Government to abandon
the Reserves. Next year came a private letter to the
Lieutenant-Governor from Lord Goderich's successor in
the Colonial Office, recommending the endowment of a
rectory in every parish or township out of the Clergy
Reserves, and the application of a portion of the funds-
under the control of the Local Government, to the build,
ing of rectories and churches. To quiet the most clamor-
ous of the other denominations, four thousand pounds

i^^

,380

ROME IN CANADA.

.was to betaken from the proceeds of the Clargy Reserves.
In this way it was hoped that the balance of the terri-
torial fund might be retained for the Church of England.
The difficulty was to find money enough to satisfy the crav-
ingsot thehve other denominations, which had, on a smaU
•scale, become stipendiaries of the State.

Five years after the Imperial Government had declared
its intention to abandon the Clergy Reserves as an eccle-
siastical endowment, Lieutenant-Governor Colborne
■erected and endowed forty-five rectories, patents for
twelve more having been left in an incomplete state.
This act, betraying an intention to give the Church of
England the position of dominancy which it had been at
first intended it should occupy, excited the alarm and
jealousy of other denominations. The Church of Scot-
land called for the revocation of the patents; founding
her objection, not on the ground which other denomina-
tions took, but on the assumption that by the treaty of
union between England and Scotland she was entitled to
^n equality of privileges with the favoured Church.
While the creation of the rectories caused other denom-
inations to insist on the secularization of the reserves,
the Church of Scotland insisted on her right to share in
the booty.

The Roman Catholic bishop and clergj- repeated their
claim for pecuniary assistance from the State, exaggerat-
ing their numbers with a hope of increasing the amount*
But it was becoming more and more evident that the whole
-scheme of ecclesiastical endowments by the State would
crumble to pieces. The Imperial Government, which, from
the first, had authorized the Local Legislatures to vary or
repeal the provisions of the Act under which this appro,
priation of lands was made, now took the matter into its
own hands. By the Act now passed (1840), the interest
^nd dividends arising from the investment of the money

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

?8i

previously received from the sale of these lands was
divided into three equal parts, two of which Were to go
to the Church of England and one to the Church of Scot-
land ; the interest and dividends arising from future sales
were divided into six equal parts, two of which went to
the Church of England, and one to the Church of Scot-
land; the remaining three-sixths was to be at the disposal
of the Governor and Council, to purchase the acquiescence
in this arrangement oi the other denominations.

But just when to the Imperial Government fancied
an ample sum had been set apart to purchase, for the
Churches of England and Scotland, the quiet immunity
of the revenue secured to them, a new difficulty which
had not been anticipated cropped up : it was found
impossible to satisfy the public. The fate of seculariza-
tion, to which these endowments had, in fact, long been
doomed, was soon to overtake them. The resistance to
secularization continued in active force in Lower Canada
long after it had ceased in the Upper Province. The
resistance of M. Lalontaine, a representative French
Canadian, and a public man ot great influence, was pro-
bably due to the fear that, if the Protestant endowments
were swept away, those of the Church of Rome must,
sooner or later, share the same fate. When seculariza-
tion came, the Protestant population of Lower Canada,
which had never objected to the Clergy Reserves, found
itself shorn of that endov/ment. The life incomes of the
stipendiaries on the reserve fund were commuted ; and the
savings represented by a capitalization of the commuta-
tation fund represent all the endowment that now re-
mains out of an original appropriation of 3,329,739 acres
of land, except the small amount of land assigned to the
rectories.*

Thus, while v. hit was intended to be a National Church

♦ See my History of the Clergy Reserves.

!

ill

/li >:

41

ROME IN CANADA.

was, in course ol time, stripped of almost all its endow-
ments by the force of public opinion, the Church of Rome
was able to retain almost everything it ever possessed,
except the Jesuits' estates ; and it had been allowed to
accumulate, under the British dominion, vast amounts
ol property, which the French laws forbade it to hold in
mortmain.

M. Morin, that member of the double-headed Coalition
of 1854 who represented the French Canadian popula-
tion, approached the work of secularization with iear and
trembUng. Literally, on the second reading of the bill,
he wept at the success of his own measure. Hints had
been thrown out, and even menaces made, that if the
Church of England were despoiled ot her property, the
Church of Rome would not long be able to retain hers.
When the Imperial Act of 1854, which recommitted to
the Local Legislature the final destination of the Clergy
Reserves, was under discussion, remarks were made which
may have had a disquieting tendency on the usually
placid mind of M. Morin. But it was not the first time
that he acted like a man impelled by destiny; and in this
instance he would have been wholly incapable of resisting
the force of public opinion, by which he allowed himself
reluctantly to be borne along. Peel, in introducing the
bill of 1854, reinvesting the Canadian Legislature with
control over those lands, took the ground that the Clergy
Reserves rested on the same footing as the endowments of
the Roman Catholic Church. The Duke of Argyle thought
the Roman Catholic endowments were equally under the
control of the Colonial Legislature. The Roman Catho-
lics, Lord St. Leonards remarked, were in favour of the
measure, because it menaced the property of the Protes-
tant clergy ; but, he predicted, the time would come
when the Canadian Legislature would attack the Roman
Catholic tithes and endowments.

f^v

\

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

383

The Anglican Bishop of Toronto, Dr. Strachan, while
pointing to the sinister omen with which these sugges-
tions were pregnant, uttered, on his own account, very
emphatic menaces.* He argued, that the religious en-
dowments of what he called the three National Churches
ought not to be dealt with separately, but as a whole.
Together, the Churches of Rome, of England, and of Scot-
land, being a majority of the population, could repel any
attacks on their property ; but if the Church of England
was to be the first victim — and her endowments could
not be taken away without Roman Catholic votes — the
Church of Rome would be the second. ' It is true,' said
the Bishop of Toronto, addressing M. Morin, 'some of
your adherents have been heard to say that they would
fight for their endowments, and rather risk a civil
war than give them up. This would be the height of
madness ; for, no longer having the Protestant Churches
of England and Scotland to stand with you in the breach,
you would soon be overcome by numbers, and your total
defeat embittered by the thought that you might have pre-
vented such a calamity, and blessed the Province with a
longer period of peace a..u happiness, had you adopted a
truer and more just course of action.'

The population of Canada, the Anglican bishop argued,
would be essentially English, embedded among people of
the same race. Our Republican neighbours dislike all
religious establishments. In a short time the people
whose Church property was menaced would be three
times as numerous as those whom M. Morin represented ;
* and then,' Bishop Strachan continued, with a menace
intended to carry dismay into the heart of his correspon-
dent, * the evil you have done to us will be returned to

* A Letter from the Bishop of Toronto to the Honourable A. N. tlorin, Commiat*'*^**
of Crown Lands.

384

ROME IN CANADA

i;

you ten-fold, and the besom of bitter retaliation will sweep
away your magnificent endowments.'

This prediction may prove true ; but at present there
is no sign of its fulfilment.

There were Roman Catholics in Lower Canada who
were already more or less affected by the fears which the
Bishop of Toronto wished to excite. One of them de-
scribed the Clergy Reserves as the outer wall that
protected the Roman Catholic endowments. Seculariza-
tion was a declaration of war against all that Roman
Catholics held sacred ; its meaning was * a temporary
forbearance to the Roman Catholic Church and future
proscription.'

Bishop Strachan was right in saying that the T4th
George III. excepted the religious orders and communi-
ties irom the rest of His Majesty's subjects who were
entitled * to hold and enjoy their property and posses-
sions.' This prohibition was the starting point of British
legislation after the conquest, but it has long since been
removed. In the capitulation of Montreal it was stipu-
lated (Art. XXXII.) that 'thecommunitiesof nuns shall be
preserved in their constitution and privileges ; that they
shall continue to observe their rules, and to be exempted
from lodging any military ; that it shall be forbid to
trouble them in their religious exercise, or to enter their
monasteries.'

The same privileges were demanded (Art. XXXII.),
but refused, with regard to the communities of Jesuits and
Recollets, and of the house of the priests of St. Sulpice.
(Art. XXXIV.) Yet the communities and all the priests
were to preserve their movables, and the property
and revenues of the seignories, and other estates which
they possessed in the colony ; and the same estates were
to be preserved in their privileges, rights, honours, and
exemptions.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

385

be

The definitive treaty of peace left untouched the ground
covered by these articles ; and it is a question whether
they continued to have force after the treaty was signed.
The British Pr» iament assumed that the treaty alone
was obligatory, when it excepted the religious orders and
communities from those subjects who were -entitled to
hold their property and possessions. We have nowhere
seen it stated that France took any exception to this
practical interpretation of the international engagement.

An agent of the French Government at the court of
London wrote, October nth, 1763, to the due de Choiseul,
Minister of the King of France : * It is not known what
religious system the English will cause to be adopted in
Canada ; but it is not doubted that in permitting the
exercise of the Catholic religion, they will, in the mean-
time, suppress the convents of each sex, which they
regard as useless in the colonies.' If this writer was well
inforr i, and he must have been in a position to obtain
cf . information, the capitulation must have been con-
sidered as superseded by the treaty, and the free exercise
of the Roman Catholic rehgion regarded as possible
where convents are not allowed to exist. But perhaps he
listened to the loose talk of persons who had not fully
mastered the facts of the case.

The convents are in possession of large amounts of real
estate, which is constantly increasing, and which does not
contribute its share to the municipal burdens. Of these
institutions there are in the Dominion two hundred
and twenty-four, of which one hundred and sixty are
situated in the Province of Quebec* Some of the older
convents in Quebec must be very wealthy, and in all parts

* The following figures come to hand while this work is passing through the press :
Rolland's Almanack for 1878 makes the Roman Catholic population of Canada
1,792,000; and states the number of Bishops at 22 ; Priests, 1,321 ; Churches or Mis-
sion Chapels, i,jgi ; Seminaries, 16 ; Ecclesiastics, 486; Colleges, 47; Convents, 224
Hospitals, 30; Asylums, 42; Academies, 99; Religious Communities, 76; Schools,3,323

I]!

386

ROME IN CANADA.

of the country conventual wealth is rapidly increasing,
from direct acquisitions and from the natural increase in
the value of property.

These institutions have extraordinary facilities for in-
creasing their wealth. Sometimes they are able to borrow
from the faithful at about half the current rate of interest ;
and sometimes they give no other security than the
receipt of the Superior. If the school fees they charge
Protestant parents for educating their daughters be low,
there is no reason to suppose they do not leave a profit.
At the present rate of accumulation, it is difficult to set
bounds to the future wealth of the convents ; and their
influence will be in proportion to their riches, if, as
houses of education, they continue to have opportunities
thrown in their way of moulding the minds of girls born
of Protestant parents.

If education be secularized anywhere, the education of
the daughters of Protestant parents in convents ought,
by the very nature of the contract, to be secular. Of two
things one : either no religious instruction can be given
to these pupils, or it must be in accordance with the doc-
trines of the Church of Rome ; if none is given the con-
tract is so far observed. In that case what becomes of
the cry of godless education ? In the Province of Quebec
the Archbishop decides that a particular catechism 'shall
be the only one the use of which shall be permitted in the
public instructions of the diocese.'* But no attempt will
be made to teach a Roman, Catholic catechism to Protest-
ant pupils. Such a measure would defeat its own ends, by
immediately awakening alarm. By undertaking to educate
Protestant children, as the convents do, the Church for-
feits its right to denounce secular education as godless.

In session of the Quebec Legislature 1876-77 the
Sisters of Providence obtained the passage of an Act by a

* Mandement de Monscigneur I'Eveque de Quebec, March a, 1829.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

3»7

large majority — the vote was forty against thirteen —
giving them authority to carry on every kind of manufac-
tures in the convent. An attempt was made by the
minority to abolish the exemption from taxation which
the property of the Sisters enjoys, as a corollary of the
new competitive powers granted them, but it failed of
success. A general proposition to subject to taxation the
property of all religious communities which engage in
manufactures shared the same fate. But it is something
that the question of taxing ecclesiastical the same as lay
property has been raised in what Pope Pius IX. styles
the ' city which has the right to be called the metropolis
of the Catholic religion in North America.'*

In the other Provinces of the Dominion the wealth of
the Church is relatively much less than in Quebec. But
it is everywhere increasing in a variety of shapes : in
lands, in churches and chapels, in seminaries and col-
leges, in convents and hospitals, in asylums, academies,
and communities. If Bishop Strachan's estimate of the
value of the property of the Roman Catholic Church in
Quebec in 1854 be even approximately correct, and if we
make a moderate allowance for the rest of the Provinces,
that Church must be in the enjoyment of what is equal to
the revenue derivable from sixty-five millions of dollars
worth of property. But the truth is that the Church, and
the Church alone, is in possession of the means of arriving
at the extent of its wealth, and without its aid perhaps
no close or reliable estimate can be made. It is not im-
possible, however, that it is even more wealthy than the
figures we have given indicate.

Nearly all the priests in the Province of Quebec whi^
[tt^irfi propersy urr.ii.d iii«*« muke a pr»r.tire of bequRhi..
ing it to the Church for one purpose or another.t

* Bull chnonically erecting the Univeniity of Laval,
i MtiH'jir d'j Mgr.J. N. Provencher, Eveque de Julipoolit, 20 Mart, 1836.
25

388

ROME IN CANADA.

In Manitoba, and possibly some other portions of the
North-west, the Churc h of Rome bids fair to become as
wealthy as it is in Qu ebec. Of the one million four hun-
dred thousand acres set apart for the half-bceeds of that
Province, a large part is certain to become sooner or later
the property of the Church. It is in this indirect way that
most of her large acquisitions are made. The half-breeds
are attached to the roaming life of the hunter, which they
will not readily change for the steady and painful labour
of the agriculturist. The superstition of the Indian, of
which they retain strong traces, makes them particu-
larly sensible to religious impressions of whatever kind ;
and the influence over them of a priesthood which holds
the keys of heaven and hell, and can shorten the stay of
their souls in purgatory , must be all but omnipotent. That
it will be used, in their case as it has in others, to add to
the Church's wealth it is not uncharitable to believe.

There, as almost everywhere else on this continent, the
Roman Catholic missionaries were first in the fleld. In
the year of the Peace of Utrecht they had a mission at
the Grand Portage on Lake Superior, and they afterwards-
slowly penetrated the interior, inciting the French Gov-
ernment to make those discoveries in which the Varennes
de Verandrye were engaged, and which shortly before the
conquest led the French as far as the Rocky Mountains.*
At a much earlier period they had been on some parts of
Lake Superior. The North-west country was erected in-
to a Vicarship in 1847; until then it had been under the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec. The diocese of
St. Boniface, Manitoba, over which Archbishop Tache
presides, was divided in 1862 by the erection of the Mac-
kenzie River Vicarship ; in 1867 the Vicarship of the
Saskatchewan was added, and in 1870 there were Catho-
lic missions at over a hundred different points.

* Pierre Margry, in the Monitetir, Sept. 14 ana Nov, i, 1833.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

S8»

le

ic-

le

Though there are at present no indications of the real- ,
ization of the predictions of the late Anghcan Bishop of
Toronto, we must not forget that an agitation lor the
abohtion of tithes in Lower Canada sprung up some time
ago, and was maintained with persistency, if not with much
energy, for several years. '

* No degree of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,' said
VAvenir, * is exempt from the vices which the love of
power and of riches entails. The Catholic clergy is far
too rich ; the tithe gives it an undue influence, which it
has so much abused to the misfortune of the country.^
But the assault was ill conducted, and L'Avenir greatly
over-shot the mark. When it argued that a democratic
republic had no need of priests, it naturally shocked the
religious sentiment of a people so devoted to their Church
as are the great body of French Canadians. That agi-
tation has subsided into a dead calm, whether to be re-
newed again or not is a question that belongs to the
future.

The New School takes new ground on the subject of
tithes as on almost every other question ; ground which
the Church never thought of assuming during the French
dominion. The new doctrine is that 'the interference
by the civil power in the administration of ecclesiastical
property is a sacrilegious usurpation, a manifest and revolt-
ing absurdity ; ' besides being a folly as great as it would
be for the same authority to undertake to make the course:
of the stars dependent on its will. ' The Church alone,'
the modern doctrine runs, ♦ has a right to legislate on the-
subject oftithes ; the rules it makes are strictly obligatory^
and the civil power has nothing to do with this or any
similar matter. It is permitted to do one thing only,,
and not only permitted but commanded, if it desires to-
exercise its legislative power with regard to ecclesiasti-
cal property : and that is to promulgate, as laws of the:

390

ROM^. IN CANADA.

State, the laws of the Church in a like matter ; to use
every means at its disposal to put them into execution
and cause them to be observed.''*^

The amount of the tithes depended on the will of the
civil government. Numerous edicts were passed on the
subject of tithes, in which original and absolute legislative
jurisdiction was exercised. There was then no pretence
that the Church had the right to fix the amount. It the
Church could levy what rate of tithe it thought proper,
it would be in its power to impoverish the entire body of
farmers who adhered to the Roman faith.

The Abbe Pelletier contends that the Church's right of
possession is one which the civil power cannot limit. The
right to pttesess must cany with it the right to acquire,
and if both propositions are admitted in their full import,
the laws of mortmain must be swept away. Writers like
this may support their claims by reference to the Syllabus,
but in all Christendom there are few governments which
are so far prepared to abdicate their functions as to allow
the Church all it claims under this head. If anything
could endanger the endowments of the Roman Catholic
Church in Quebec, it would be the putting forth of ex-
treme pretensions such as these. Any attempt materially
to increase the amount of tithes which the Church might
make, would oblige both the Legislature and the judicial
tribunals to interfere. Even if the Church could tem-
porarily succeed in practically applying these doctrines,
it would only pave the way for its own final ruin.

The more sagacious members of the clergy see clearly
enough that a Church which can be reproached with
the possession of enormous wealth is in a dangerous
position. There used to be Sulpician priests who believed
that the Seminary of Montreal could, by pursuing an

* AbM Pelletier. Lc Don Quichotte Montr^alaia lur la RMiiiunte,ou M. Dtasaullea
«t U Grande Guerre Ecciteiutiquc.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

19^

indiscreet line of conduct, cover itself with discredit and
ruin. 'The Seminary' was told that it was * not assured
of its existence. Its rights and possessions are contested,
and we have reason to fear for the future.'t

Villeneuve has employed arguments which, pushed to
their legitimate extent, would authorize the bishop to
despoil the Sulpicians of their estates. • Their property,'
he says, ' has been given to God lor the service of the
Catholics, in the Island of Montreal.' And to the ques-
tion whether the property does not belong to the Sulpi-
cians, he replies : ' It belongs to God, to the Church, to
the faithful in the Island of Montreal.'

The means by which the Bishopric of Montreal has be-
come the second largest proprietor in the city consist
chiefly of gifts. Many of the properties of which it thus
became possessed are charged with life annuities, varying
in amounts from five hundred to six thousand dollars
a year. The bishop is also made administrator of many
other funds, such as the hundred thousand dollars given,
for the support of worship, education, and missions in
JoUette. By the fire of 1852 the Bishopric lost, after
deducting the amount ot insurance it received, a hundred
and sixty thousand dollars. The episcopal palace and
other buildings were not built without the aid of a large
amount of borrowed capital. But when the life annuities
expire, and the real estate increases in value, the Bishop-
ric will become very, not to say enormously, wealthy. It
is pretended that the ten priests connected with the
Bishopric suffer the privations of poverty ; their income,
over and above their food and clothing, being put at
thirty cents per day each.| They envy the Sulpicians the

t Declaration et observations presentees par J. B. Ch. Bedard, Ptre, du Seminairc
de Montreal, 4 M. Rioux, Supirieur de cette Maison, et aux autres Pretres, ses-
Confreres, Membrrs du meme Seminaire, au sujet du Gouvernement Ecclesiastique di»
District de Montreal, Juin 1824.

X Villeneuve.

39*

ROME IN CANADA.

possession of their v/ealth, and will probably never be
satisfied until they can get a share of it.

It seems to be not impossible that the diocesan might
dispute the title of the Sulpicians to their property in some
possible event, such, for instance, as the extinction of the
special objects for which the title was confirmed ; but
even then the State would have a much better right to do
it. A commission of theologians, to whom some ques-
tion were put by the bishops of Montreal and Rimouski,
and who held their sittings at Quebec, cited authorities
to show that religious communities are not proprietors,
that their rights are only those of persons in the enjoy-
ment of the usufruct and of administrators. And the
authority quoted (the Nouveau Denisart) adds : ' The
propeity is the property of the Church, to which it has
been given by the State into which the Church has been
received for the benefit of the people of whom it is com-
posed.' Doctrines which the New School reject with in-
dignation and abhorence. ' The property,' the quotation
continues, ' belongs to the Church to which it has been
given. The reason which causes us to regard the Church
and the State as the real proprietors of ecclesiastical pro-
perty is founded on the distinction between different kinds
of communities. The different persons, whether physical
or moral, who form what we call the clergy are not really
the proprietors of the property of which they are in pos-
session.'

When the bishops referred this question to those emi-
nent theologians, they did not desire that the answers
should be of this complexion ; and when they were re-
ceived they were rejected with haughty disdain. ' Caesar-
ism and Gallicanism, the most accentuated,'* shouted in
chorus the army of writers by which the Bishop of Mont-
real had undertaken to subdue all hostile opinions.

L* RidactioH du Franc-Parleur.

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH.

393

"• The Church a chattel of the State ! ' The Episcopate of
-Quebec in council has reversed the maxim, and presented,
as a pleasing thing, a picture of the State as a chattel of
the Church.

The doctrine that the property of the Sulpicians of
Montreal is the property of the Roman Catholic Church
is one that may be pushed to much greater extent, and be
turned against the parties by whom it is now used against
the Seminary. A slight change of phraseology is all that
is necessary. If the broader ground be taken that the
property was given lor the support of religion, and if the
great majority of the people changed their religion, the
property would, according to this doctrine and to equity,
follow the change. The argument has not only been
used before, but it has frequently been applied in
practice. It is a perilous weapon for the bishopric of
Montreal to wield against the Sulpicians.

The views of these Quebec theologians would carry us
much further ; for as they assume that the property be-
longs to the Church and the State, there are conceivable
■cases in which resumption by the State would become a
•duty. Judge Baudryf draws a very important conclusion
from the fact that the parishioners are obliged to contri-
bute to the construction of churches and presbyteries.
After admitting that the property of the Fabrique is the
property of the Church, and that the control of it properly
belongs to the religious authority, he adds, as a matter of
fact, that ' this property is subject to the control of the
<:ivil authority, for the reason that the obligation is im-
posed on the parishioners to contribute to the purchase of
materials and the construction of the edifices, and that
they are in possession thereof.' Pagnuello contests this
<:onclusion, but only by quoting the decrees of the Council
.of Trent, which are not in force in Canada. The pretence

f Code des Cures,

IjULJL.,,

394

ROME IN CANADA.

that the Council of Trent could impose involuntary taxes:
on Her Majesty's subjects in Canada, involves the further
assumption that the State only interferes, as in obedience
bound, to lend the strength of the secular arm to enforce
the decrees of a General Council. If the State were under
this obligation, it would be equally bound to enforce all
the propositions (reversed) in the Syllabus, and every-
thing which the Pope may take on himself to define
dogmatically, since General Councils have become useless
in presence of an infallible Pontiff. When the State com-
pels the citizens to pay any tax, whether for secular or
religious purposes, there lies at the bottom of its action
the theory that some public or national end is to be
served, and if that tax be expended on permanent objects,
it is clear that if these objects cease to serve the end for
which they were created, they may be devoted to some
other purpose, in order to carry out the original intention
of promoting the national weal. The argument that a
person who hires a pew in a church cannot be a co-pro-
prietor, since he is certainly a tenant, is easily answered.
A stockholder in a theatre company occupies the double
position : he is at once co-proprietor and tenant ; and there
is nothing to prevent a parishioner who holds a pew in a
church being co-proprietor of the building to the con-
struction of which he was obliged to contribute. Is that
a moral theory which denies the right of ownership to
the creators of a property ? If it be sound it will take us
a long way, much farther than some have had to travel
to reach the penitentiary.

The perpetuity of spontaneous gifts has in these latter
days been treated as contrary to public policy. A man
cannot, in this country, entail, even on his own direct
descendants, that wealth which he spent a life of toil and
self-denial in acquiring. What reason is there that be-
quests to Churches should be on a different footing ? If

1

THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. 395

corporations do not die, so successive generations of
human beings fill up the gaps which death creates, and
in any case entail must cease in default of heirs.

If in the train of this rapidly accumulating corporate
wealth a desolating corruption do not follow, the world
will have a new experience, of which the past presents no
example and affords no reasonable ground of hope.

S96

ROME IN CANADA,

XVIII.

A RECOIL AT ONE POINT OF THE LINE.

The decisions of the Courts in the contested elections
■oi Charlevoix and Bonaventure, by which the undue
influence of the cures was condemned, attested the gravity
of the crisis which had been brought about by the conflict
into which the ecclesiastics had entered against the civil
authority. On one side were the bishops and the priests,
proclaiming aloud that they were backed by the approval
of the Pope ; on the other, the unfaltering voice and
sinewy arm of the civil power, as represented in the
highest court in the country. The delicacy of the situa-
tion was at once seen at Rome ; and the worldly wisdom
of the Vatican was called into action. In the early part
of 1877, Dr. Conroy, Bishop of Ardagh, Ireland, was in
Rome, where he attended several meetings of the Con-
gregation of the Propaganda, and was admitted to more
than one audience with the Pope, at which the crisis in
Canada was the subject of discussion. The metropolis
of Roman Catholicism in America needed instant atten-
tion. Thither Dr. Conroy was accredited as Ablegate.
His instructions were drawn up by the Propaganda.
When France was master of the country, this functionary
would have been required to lay his instructions before
the Government ; we are now left to divine their tendency
through the medium of the causes which gave rise to this
Papal embassy and from what it may lead to.

The facts are eloquent, and from no one are they a

A RECOIL AT ONE POINT OF THE LINE.

397

hidden secret. On the verge of the precipice to which
she had marched, Rome halted, recoiled. There were the
Joint Letter, and the brief of Pope Pius IX. approving of
that episcopal mandate ; there were pastorals from more
than one bishop identifying the approval of the Pope with
the action of the priests. Retreat seemed cut off. The
Joint Letter, the brief, and the separate pastorals could
not be withdrawn or repudiated. But they could be
explained in a way that would leave a loop-hole of escape
from the difficulty. So the bishops met in Consistory,
and in a joint pastoral, dated October ii, 1877, let the
world know that they had never mtended to authorize the
priests to descend to the battle-ground of political parties
and get into direct antagonism with individuals. The
Joint Letter had been misunderstood; and strange as it
may seem, the bishops had misunderstood themselves.
But we are still to find in the Joint Letter * the true doc-
trine on the constitution and rights of the Church;' that
is, we are there to learn that the State is in the Church,
and that the Church is superior to the State. The Pope's
brief addressed to the Bishop of Three Rivers is not to
be regarded as condemning any political party whatever,
but as having reference solely to Liberal Catholics and
their principles, wherever they may be found. The
bishops leave each one of the faithful to judge 'who
are the men to whom these condemnations apply, what-
ever the political party to which they belong.'

This retreat is only ^ade at one point of the line ; every
where else the old attitude is preserved. Besides, liberal
Catholics are under the same condemnation as before ;
the new difficulty will be to affix that stigma to any can-
didate ; if once made to adhere, it will not be less fatal
in the future than it has been in the past. If this halt at
one point of the line, this recoil before the menaced pen-

398

ROME IN CANADA.

alties of a parliamentary enactment, were to be followed
b)' a stoppage of the entire aggressive movement of the
Ultramontanes in Canada, of which there is not the least
probability, that movement would still form one of the
most striking episodes which the recent action of the
Church of Rome anywhere presents.

THE BND.

ik^wniM^